9:27 pm - Wall Street tilts to lower open ahead of data

NEW YORK (AP) - Wall Street tilted toward a lower open Friday as investorsawaited a report on existing home sales and adjusted their portfolios before thethree-day holiday weekend. The National Association of Realtors is expected to report that existinghome sales dipped in April to a record low, an indication that the housingmarket showed no signs of recovery during the spring sales season. The report isscheduled for release at 10 a.m. EDT; sales are forecast to have fallen 1.6percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.85 million units, down from4.93 million in March, according to Thomson/IFR. Oil prices are set for a third weekly gain after surging to a record $135.09a barrel on Thursday. Investors are buying on the belief that supply can't keepup with growing global demand from countries like China and India. Crude fellback in overnight trading, but was recently up $1.76 at $132.56 a barrel inpremarket trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The economic fallout from higher energy prices remained Wall Street's focusthis week. Stocks rose moderately Thursday after two sessions of steep declines,with the Dow Jones industrial average recording its biggest two-day loss sincelate February. Dow futures fell 51, or 0.34 percent, to 12,565. Standard & Poor's 500 indexfutures shed 6.00, or 0.43 percent, to 1,387.20, and the Nasdaq 100 futuresdropped 6.00, or 0.31 percent, to 1,960.50. Despite the declines of more than 2 percent in the major indexes this week,stocks are off their mid-March lows. The Dow is still up 7.5 percent from itsclose of 11,740.15 on March 10. Bond prices edged higher. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note,which moves opposite its yield, fell to 3.87 percent from 3.92 percent lateThursday. The dollar was mostly higher against other major currencies, and gold wasalso higher. In corporate news, Gap Inc. reported late Thursday that first-quarter profitsurpassed Wall Street projections. The retailer said it boosted profit by 40percent by better managing inventory and cutting costs. There was also deal talk going into the holiday weekend. Halliburton Co.,the world's second-largest oilfield services company, made a $3.4 billion bid toacquire British rival Expro International Group. Yahoo Inc. late Thursday said in regulatory filing that it pushed its annualshareholders meeting to an undetermined date in late July. The move was seengiving the Internet portal more time to prepare a defense -- or negotiate a saleto Microsoft Corp. American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings Inc. might rise after the companysaid late Thursday that workers approved a new contract including pay cuts andother concessions. The vote ends a strike that lasted nearly three months,hurting General Motors Corp.'s production of large sport utility vehicles andpickup trucks. Although the contract's ratification will benefit GM, auto stockshave been under pressure this week because of soaring fuel prices. In overseas trade, Tokyo's Nikkei closed rose 0.24 percent. In Europe,London's FTSE dropped 0.90 percent, Frankfurt's DAX fell 0.57 percent and Paris'CAC 40 shed 1.10 percent. Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be