Stock Futures Fall Ahead of Bank Earnings, Bernanke; Apple Drops

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Stock futures were pointing to a lower open on Wall Street Monday as investors looked ahead to a flood of bank earnings later this week and as Apple(AAPL) shares plunged.

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were falling 23 points, or 13.43 points below fair value, at 13,410. Futures for the S&P 500 were down 2.50 points, or 1.95 points below fair value, at 1464. Futures for the Nasdaq were down 17.25 points, or 15.56 points below fair value, at 2726.

Apple shares were tumbling more than 2% in premarket trading on reports that the tech giant has cut orders for components for the iPhone 5 due to weaker-than-expected demand, people familiar with the situation told The Wall Street Journal.

Major bank releases later this week include JPMorgan Chase(JPM) and Goldman Sachs(GS) on Wednesday, and Bank of America(BAC) and Citigroup(C) on Thursday.

JPMorgan Chase's(JPM) board is expected to dock the 2012 bonuses of CEO Jamie Dimon and another top executive because of the "London Whale" trading debacle, the Journal reported, citing people close to the company.

JPMorgan shares were down 0.67% in premarket trading.

"What we're really focused on is the banking institutions and what is the quality of their earnings, what is the quality of their revenues," said Keith Bliss, Cuttone director of sales and marketing.

He said two things are "vastly important" when looking at these companies. One is net interest margin. "Right now it's been shrinking for the big banks primarily because of the low interest rate environment and the flat yield curve that we've had for the last two years."

"The other is the loan-to-deposit ratio," Bliss said. Most banks, to make money, want to be at a 100% loan-to-deposit ratio. "Most of them are riding in the 70% category right now, which means they want to lend the money out, but they're just not finding good quality borrowers," he explained.