Icahn’s Herbalife Stake and Costco Gets Sued: Morning Buzzers

U.S. stock futures were pretty flat on Friday morning as the world turns its attention to the G20 meeting in Moscow, where currency tensions have stolen the spotlight.

Futures at 8:50 a.m.: DJIA: -0.02%, S&P 500: +0.01%, NASDAQ: +0.08%.

Here’s what’s buzzing on Friday morning:

Herbalife (NYSE:HLF) surged as much as 22 percent in pre-market trading on Friday after Carl Icahn disclosed a 12.98 percent stake in the nutritional-supplement company that Bill Ackman has called a pyramid scheme. Comments Icahn made in an interview with Bloomberg suggest that his investment in the company is in no small part a personal jab at Ackman. Icahn said that he doesn’t “like” or “respect” the hedge fund manager. “You don’t go out and get a room full of people to badmouth the company,” Icahn said in the interview. “If you want to be in that business, why don’t you join the SEC.”

CBS Corp. (NYSE:CBS) was off as much as 1.7 percent in pre-market trading after the mass media company reported fourth-quarter and full-year 2012 results that missed analyst expectations. For the quarter, revenue increased 2 percent to $3.7 billion, missing estimates by about $300 million. Earnings growth of 14 percent to $0.64 per share missed estimates by about 6 cents.