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U.S. stock futures drifted lower Friday morning, indicating a weaker start on Wall Street, a day after a market rally that was fueled by strong economic reports. But as investors catch their breath, they also await cautiously for data on consumer spending and sentiment, as earlier data this week surprised to the down side.

On Thursday, the government reported the economy grew 3.5% in the third quarter. While the growth was mostly due to government stimuli, it was enough to lift stocks some 2% for the day. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Thursday the U.S. economy's return to growth shows some stability but recovery is fragile and needs nurturing.

Even as the battle over health care reform rages on Capitol Hill, we are seeing a flurry of third quarter reports from insurers.

Aetna Inc. (NYSE: AET) reported Thursday that its third-quarter profit rose 18% from a year ago to $308.2 million, or $0.69 per share, topping Wall Street's expectations. Revenue came in at $8.72 billion, versus the consensus of $8.68 billion. Aetna also said share repurchases totaled 3.9 million at a cost of $114 million in the third quarter of 2009.

Here are some highlights from last week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) reported strong Q2 earnings thought revenue fell but beat analysts' estimates.
• Colgate-Palmolive Co. (NYSE: CL) beat Q2 earnings estimates but revenue suffered from currency effects.
• Dow Chemical Co. (NYSE: DOW) reported a drop in Q2 revenue and a net loss on restructuring charges.
• Eastman Kodak Co. (NYSE: EK) posted a deeper-than-expected Q2 net loss as sales plunged.
• Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) reported its lowest quarterly profit in years, well short of expectations.

Late yesterday, MetLife (NYSE: MET) announced a second-quarter net loss of $1.74 per share, compared to earnings of $1.26 per share a year ago. The company blamed the loss on derivative losses of $1.8 billion, $1 billion of which was related to an increase in the company's own debt in the second quarter. Excluding charges, MET earned 88 cents per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate by 20 cents. The insurer's premiums, fees, and other revenue increased 4% to $8.38 billion thanks to a record amount of money spent in variable annuity products.

Variable annuities can be described as a contract between the purchaser and the insurance company. The insurer agrees to make payments to the purchaser either immediately or at a future date. Investment options for variable annuities are usually a mutual fund that invests in stocks, bonds, money market instruments, or a combination of the three.

Late Tuesday, insurance issue MetLife Inc. (NYSE: MET) reported that it will combine its U.S. operations into a single division. The company's institutional and individual business segments, as well as its home and auto units, will be merged into one under the aegis of William Mullaney, the current head of MET's institutional business. The metamorphosis is set to begin Aug. 1, although a full integration isn't expected to be complete until 2010.

"With this realignment, we are recognizing that we can better serve both employee benefit plan sponsors and individual customers through a single, integrated organization, while preserving our unique franchises," commented CEO and chairman C. Robert Henrikson. "A unified U.S. business organization creates a stronger growth platform and builds on our financial strength and our strong brand."

MetLife (NYSE: MET) closed at $29.41. MET is speaking at the Wachovia Securities 19th Annual Mid-Year Equity Conference on June 23. MET July option implied volatility of 70 is below a level of 82 from mid-May and below its 26-week average of 92, according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price movement.

Prudential Financial (NYSE: PRU) closed at $36.15. PRU July option implied volatility of 61 is below a level of 93 from mid-may and below its 26-week average of 111, according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price movement.

Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) reported better-than-expected Q1 earnings as revenues surged in the quarter.
• Burger King Holdings Inc. (NYSE: BKC) just beat Q3 expectations despite weak same-store sales growth.
• Corn Products International Inc. (NYSE: CPO) Q1 results were dragged down by higher corn costs.
• Dow Chemical Co. (NYSE: DOW) Q1 earnings sank on falling sales, job cuts and acquisition costs.
• Eastman Kodak Co. (NYSE: EK) reported a deeper-than-expected Q1 loss and suspended its dividend.
• Energizer Holdings Inc. (NYSE: ENR) posted better-than-expected Q2 earnings but revenue declined.

MetLife (NYSE: MET - option chain) stock is falling today after the company announced a first-quarter loss of $574 million, or 71 cents per share. Excluding one-time items, MET earned 20 cents per share during the quarter, missing analysts' estimates of 34 cents per share. The company was hurt during the quarter by a loss on investments of $618 million and a 24 percent declined in quarterly investment income. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on MET.

This morning, OSK opened at $28.81. So far today the stock has hit a low of $27.08 and a high of $28.94. As of 11:55, MET is trading at $27.67, down $2.08 (-7.0%). The chart for MET looks bullish and S&P gives MET a positive 4 STARS (out of 5) buy ranking.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says stocks are likely to decline, but don't expect them to fall hard and fast.

So, five days ago we are talking about breaking back to above Dow 10,000 with ease. Now is there anyone out there who doesn't think that we will soon be retesting the mid-7000s? SPX 750, here we come?

What the heck happened in a week? Where did all of that optimism go? We haven't had that many preannouncements yet. We haven't had all of the retail failures we expected, and we didn't even get a spike up in the bad commodities -- like gasoline -- that had any last to it.

Of course, the most likely scenario about what happened is that we figured with all of the crises solved, the major banks no longer an issue, we would then be propelled higher. We also didn't have the reckless short-selling that had so characterized this market.

General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) and Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) soared about 19% each in Frankfurt as Congress is getting closer to approve a bailout for the Big 3 automakers. The White House and Democratic congressional leaders are narrowing their differences and could agree on a deal and bring to a vote soon. Both shares are trading 21% and 18% higher respectively in premarket (8:12 am). By midday, both automakers' stocks were up about 14%.

Other gainers in Frankfurt include oil and gas producers, commodity stocks and financials: Alcoa Inc. (NYSE: AA) jumped 10%, Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) shares rose 11% and Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) gained about 5%. In premarket, AA shares are 6.4%, 5% and 2.4% higher (8:15 am). Commodities, industrials, financial and oil & gas stocks continued to gain well throughout the session with Alcoa up 14% by midday and BAC up 11%. XOM was only up 2.5% thought.

Tribune Co. may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as soon as this week, according to sources of The Wall Street Journal, as the newspaper industry worsens.

Hartford Financial (NYSE: HIG) shares are continuing their massive upward trend from Friday after the insurer raised its full-year operating profit forecast and said the capital outlook at its insurance units was strong. Shares are up 13.4% in premarket trading. HIG stock had simiilar gains by midday trading.

After shareholders had approved on Friday Bank of America's takeover of Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER), Merrill's CEO John Thain has suggested to directors that he get a 2008 bonus of as much as $10 million. According to WSJ sources, the company's compensation committee is resisting his request.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the action in some of the banks and insurers is sickening.

They've gotten to the fortress banks. They have crushed everything financial because the word is out: No more bonuses and no more dividends if you take federal money under President Obama.

I don't know if it is true. But I sense from the action since the election that something big and bad is happening to the banks and the insurers. It looks like there is a quid pro quo developing and that quid pro quo is that if you want to get help from the government you are not going to get a bonus and you have to hurt your shareholders.

What else can the takeaway be for the way Citigroup (NYSE: C) (Cramer's Take) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) (Cramer's Take) are acting? What else is there driving Prudential (NYSE: PRU) (Cramer's Take) and MetLife (NYSE: MET) (Cramer's Take)? These are big firms! Great firms!

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says tons of stocks look like good buys, and they go down all the time.

All weekend I heard it. Stocks have gotten too cheap. Put 'em away cheap. Don't worry about 'em cheap. To which I say, stocks are only cheap if the companies make it. Stocks are only cheap if the bondholders don't claim them.

Every day I see cheap stocks. Ford (NYSE: F) (Cramer's Take) reported this morning. Ridiculously cheap. How cheap is Sprint (NYSE: S) (Cramer's Take), for heaven's sake? Did you see the Sunrise Senior Living (NYSE: SRZ) (Cramer's Take) numbers? That stock should show up when you enter "cheap stock" in Google. Except Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) (Cramer's Take) comes up.

When Warren Buffett says stocks are cheap, or Jeremy Grantham or Steve Leuthold or Jeremy Siegel, it's very heartening. You just want to go out there and buy cheap stocks like CBS (NYSE: CBS) (Cramer's Take) and Williams-Sonoma (NYSE: WSM) (Cramer's Take) and Ann Taylor (NYSE: ANN) (Cramer's Take) and Talbots (NYSE: TLB) (Cramer's Take).

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says this trade has worked all week, but it's a shaky play on the fundamentals.

It's a stubborn market. We sit here and marvel that Barclays (NYSE: BCS) (Cramer's Take) or Mitsubishi (NYSE: MTU) (Cramer's Take) need to raise money when three weeks ago we thought they were going to inherit the earth because they didn't lose money. We liked them because we stubbornly believed they were better.

We thought that Prudential (NYSE: PRU) (Cramer's Take) was The Rock; now it is The Rock like the guy who makes a lot of movies -- not all of them good. Lincoln National (NYSE: LNC) (Cramer's Take) was perceived to be much higher quality than MetLife (NYSE: MET) (Cramer's Take), but that's wrong. The idea that the Hartford (NYSE: HIG) (Cramer's Take) would be in trouble, as it has always been not in trouble, is amazing to us.

We stubbornly cling to the ones that we thought were good until we hear that they need a bailout. Then we turn on them like they were never good or like they are going to go bankrupt.

Three weeks ago, I highlighted the trouble in the insurance industry. The reason? Insurance companies get premiums and they invest them until it's time to pay a claim. It's a great business if the insurers can pick good investments. Regrettably, many insurers own more mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) than they have capital. So as they write down this toxic waste, the decline in their capital puts them at risk.

This comes to mind in considering the earnings of three insurers: Met Life (NYSE: MET), Prudential Financial (NYSE: PRU), and Aetna (NYSE: AET). Each of them have or will take a hit from lousy investments, here's how:

• MetLife expects its third-quarter operating earnings to range between $600 million and $675 million, or 83 cents to 93 cents per share; analysts expect it to make 88 cents when it reports later today. It could take charges between $1 billion and $6 billion on its asset portfolio, which could wipe out the majority of its $7 billion in excess reserves.
• Prudential expects after-tax adjusted operating income for its financial services businesses to be in the range of $275 million to $375 million or $0.67 to $0.90 per share when it reports today, below the $1.72 a share analysts expected. And it is forecasting pre-tax charges of $115 million or $0.21 per share relating to investment results from fixed income and equity investment funds and $325 million to $375 million in impairment charges on holdings of securities issued by the now bankrupt companies like Lehman Brothers.
• Aetna missed by a mile. It reported profit of $277.3 million, or 58 cents a share, compared with $496.7 million, or 95 cents last year; analysts expected it to earn $1.12 a share. A big reason for the miss was a capital-markets hit of 48 cents due to bad investments.

U.S. stock futures declined Wednesday morning but then turned positive seesawed Wednesday morning, a day after one of the biggest day of gains on Wall Street that saw the Dow industrials end up 889 points and close above 9,000 again, as investors awaited the Federal Reserve decision on interest rates to be announced at 2:15 pm. Most are expecting the Fed to cut rates by at least half a point to 1%. Meanwhile, oil rebounded from a 17-month low to above $64 per barrel ahead of the weekly inventory report due out later today. Also, September durable goods orders will be released ahead of the opening bell.

Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT) reported adjusted earnings of 44 cents per share, inline with estimates. Kraft also raised expectations for 2008 earnings.

Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) reported a 9% rise in both earnings and revenue, beating analyst estimates on both counts. P&G kept the same outlook.

Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) reported that quarterly profit plunged 72% due to a surging yen that wiped out profits from flat-panel TV and PlayStation 3 sales and revenue from the movie Hancock. This shouldn't have come as a surprise as last year the company slashed full year outlook.