Stock futures tick up on earnings, world conflicts eyed

Microsoft shares rose 2.4 percent in premarket trading a day after it said it aimed to get its loss-making Nokia phone unit to break even within two years.

Boeing added 1.2 percent in premarket trading after it reported a 52 percent jump in quarterly profit on higher commercial aircraft deliveries.

Apple shares edged 0.7 percent higher even as it posted a smaller-than-expected 6 percent rise in quarterly revenue Tuesday. Sales surged 28 percent in greater China despite stiff competition in its third-largest market. [

S&P 500 e-mini futures were up 3 points and fair value - a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract - indicated a slightly higher open. Dow Jones industrial average e-mini futures <1YMc1> rose 13 points and Nasdaq 100 e-mini futures added 12 points.

In a blow to Israel's economy and a public relations coup for Hamas, U.S. and European air carriers halted flights to Tel Aviv, citing concern over a militant rocket from Gaza that hit a house near the city's airport. Israel urged a re-think, saying its air space was safe.

Bells pealed and flags flew at half mast across the Netherlands, on a day of grief tinged with anger, ahead of the arrival of the first bodies of victims from a Malaysian airliner that was shot down over Ukraine last week. Many of the 298 deceased were Dutch.

Separately, pro-Russian rebels have shot down two Ukrainian fighter jets, not far from where the Malaysian jet was brought down in eastern Ukraine, a spokesman for Ukraine's military operations said Wednesday.

Biogen Idec reported sharply higher-than-expected quarterly revenue on surging sales of its new treatment for multiple sclerosis and raised its full-year profit forecast. Shares were up 7 percent in premarket trading.

Intuitive Surgical rose 13 percent in premarket trading, a day after it posted second quarter earnings that were better than its dismal first quarter, even as it posted its fifth straight quarterly earnings decline.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Bernadette Baum)