Wall Street set to sink on grim outlooks and sales

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By Ellis Mnyandu

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks headed for a slide at Thursday's opening as disappointing outlooks from blue-chip companies, including drugmaker Merck and chemical firm DuPont , suggested the economic slump is worsening.

Bleak November retail sales from major retailers, including No. 2 U.S. discounter, Target Corp , heightened worries about consumer spending , a key driver of corporate profits.

Besides disappointing outlooks, the severity of the recession was spotlighted by a deluge of job cut announcements from companies including phone company AT&T -- cutting 12,000 jobs -- and media company Viacom , planning to eliminate 850 jobs.

"The fact we're seeing these layoffs now tells you that it must pretty darn tight out there, for orders and sales," said Robert Macintosh, chief economist at Eaton Vance Corp in Boston.

"What I'm talking about as far as the extent of this recession, I think we're going to be closer to that recession (early 1980s) than the others we've had in the meantime."

S&P 500 futures fell 11 points and were below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures dropped 104 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures shed 19 points.

Shares of Merck, a Dow component, fell 5.5 percent to $25 before the bell after the company gave a 2009 financial outlook below Wall Street's estimates. DuPont shares slid 6.3 percent to $22.10 before the bell after the company forecast a quarterly loss.

Target shares dropped 4.1 percent to $33.05 before the bell after its November same-store sales slid by a steeper-than-expected 10.4 percent.

Investors also worried that the latest interest rate cuts from Europe may not be enough to slow the fast-moving world economic slump.

The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and Sweden all cut rates. The British central bank cut interest rates by a full percentage point.

October factory orders are due at 10 a.m.

Investors are also bracing or another round of congressional hearings on the U.S. auto industry rescue, which have shares of General Motors and Ford in the spotlight.

(Additional reporting by Herb Lash; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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