Wall Street set for flat open after selloff

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were poised for a flat open on Tuesday, in the wake of a three-session selloff, as investors look to the start of corporate earnings season.

The S&P 500 suffered its biggest three-day drop in two months and the Nasdaq posted its worst three-day decline since November 2011 on Monday as investors bid down Internet stocks and rotated into defensive names.

The recent slump has pushed the Dow <.DJI>, Nasdaq <.IXIC> and S&P 500 <.SPX> into negative territory for the year.

Earnings season gets under way this week, with results due from companies including Alcoa Inc after the close, retailer Bed, Bath & Beyond on Wednesday, while financials JPMorgan Chase & Co and Wells Fargo & Co close out the week with results on Friday.

S&P 500 companies' first-quarter earnings are projected to have increased just 1.1 percent from a year ago, Thomson Reuters data showed. The forecast is down sharply from the start of the year, when profit growth was estimated at 6.5 percent.

A lackluster first-quarter earnings season hurt by a harsh winter could spark a pullback, some analysts said, with investors expressing optimism for the second quarter as weather improves.

S&P 500 e-mini futures were flat and roughly even with 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 lost 5 points and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 7 points.

A U.S. jury ordered Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd <4502.T> to pay $6 billion in punitive damages and Eli Lilly and Co to pay $3 billion in a case claiming that cancer risks to the diabetes drug Actos were concealed, the plaintiffs' lawyer said. Eli Lily shares lost 1.1 percent to $57.99 before the opening bell.

Gigamon Inc slumped 22.2 percent to $19.85 in premarket trade. The maker of network traffic management software, estimated lower-than-expected first-quarter revenue.

Alkermes Plc said its experimental drug to treat the symptoms of schizophrenia met the main goal in a late-stage study. Its shares gained 8.2 percent to $44.46 in premarket.

Citigroup Inc edged up 0.02 percent to $46.56 in premarket. The bank said it would pay $1.12 billion in cash to settle legacy securities and other claims and incur a related charge of $100 million in the first quarter.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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