Wall Street set to fall after Citigroup, Goldman results

Wall Street was set for a lower open on Thursday after quarterly results from Goldman Sachs Group and Citigroup Inc failed to live up to expectations some investors had for financial sector shares.

Although the earnings from Goldman and Citigroup came in better than the analysts' forecasts, their results came a day after much stronger-than-expected numbers from JPMorgan Chase & Co drove stocks to new yearly highs and raised hopes that other banks would follow suit.

JPMorgan set a high bar, a bar that is tough to beat for other banks, said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer for Solaris Asset Management in Bedford Hills, New York.

Shares in Goldman Sachs fell 2.2 percent before the bell to $188.01 while Citigroup dropped 2.6 percent to $4.87.

S&P 500 futures fell 5.50 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 fell 37 points, and Nasdaq futures lost 7.75 point.

On Wednesday the Dow industrials broke the psychologically important 10,000-level for the first time since October 2008.

Generally the market's got a pretty good rise, and for some traders the expectation is to sell on the news no matter how the numbers come out, said Steve Goldman, market strategist for Weeden & Co in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Futures paired some of their losses after a gauge of manufacturing in New York State jumped unexpectedly this month to its highest in five years, and government data showed the number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless insurance unexpectedly fell last week to the lowest level since January.

The markets are going to be focused on company revenue today. The jobless number may cause markets to cut some of their losses, but earnings will remain the focus today, said Subodh Kumar, chief investment strategist, Subodh Kumar & Associates in Toronto.

(Additional reporting by Angela Moon, Rodrigo Campos, and Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Padraic Cassidy)