U.S. stock-index futures rose, indicating the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index may advance for a third day as higher oil and metal prices lifted commodity producers. Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. climbed at least 1.3 percent in German trading after crude oil rallied for a second day in New York. Newmont Mining Corp. and Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. also increased after the price of gold jumped to an 11-week high. Shares of Dow Chemical Co. may limit gains in the S&P 500 after Kuwait scrapped a deal to buy a 50 percent stake in the company’s plastics-making unit. S&P 500 futures expiring in March added 0.2 percent to 870.50 at 12:38 p.m. in London. The U.S. benchmark index hasn’t gained for three straight days since November. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures climbed 0.2 percent to 8,492, while Nasdaq-100 Index futures gained 0.5 percent to 1,194.00. “There is a possibility we will see a tepid rally,” said Nick Skiming, who helps oversee about $2 billion at Asburton Ltd. in Jersey, Channel Islands. “Earnings downgrades have been priced already into the market.” Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index gained 0.4 percent to 193.84 and the MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 1.7 percent to 88.90 as merger speculation boosted Japanese insurers and technology companies. GMAC Conversion U.S. stocks advanced on Dec. 26, giving the S&P 500 its first back-to-back gains in three weeks, after GMAC LLC’s conversion to a bank spurred a rally in General Motors Corp. The benchmark S&P 500 Index has still plunged 41 percent in 2008, the worst annual performance since 1931, as the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression dragged economies worldwide into recessions. Exxon may lead a rally in commodity producers after the biggest U.S. energy company climbed 3.1 percent to $79.58 in Germany. Chevron added 1.3 percent to $71.23. Crude oil rose a second day in New York after Israeli air strikes in the Gaza strip raised concerns that supply from the Middle East, the world’s largest producing region, may be disrupted. The contract for February delivery rose as much as 12 percent to $42.20 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Newmont Mining, the largest U.S. gold producer, gained 3.2 percent to $40.07 in Germany after gold advanced as much as 2.4 percent to $890.49 an ounce as the conflict in the Middle East boosted the appeal of the precious metal as a haven. More Cash Available Shares of Freeport-McMoRan, the world’s second-largest copper producer, increased 7.3 percent to $24.22 as copper prices rallied from a four-year low in London after gains in crude oil improved investor sentiment for raw materials. There’s more cash available to buy shares than at any time in almost two decades, a sign to the Leuthold Group, Invesco Aim Advisors Inc., Hennessy Advisors Inc. and BlackRock Inc. that equities may rebound after the worst year for U.S. stocks since the Great Depression. The $8.85 trillion held in cash, bank deposits and money- market funds is equal to 74 percent of the market value of U.S. companies, the highest ratio since 1990, according to Federal Reserve data compiled by Leuthold and Bloomberg. The eight previous times that cash peaked compared with the market’s capitalization the S&P 500 rose an average 24 percent in six months, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Dow, Kuwait Dow Chemical fell 8.1 percent to $17.78 in New York after Kuwait deprived the largest U.S. chemical maker of $9 billion it planned to put toward the acquisition of Rohm & Haas Co. Kuwait’s Supreme Petroleum Council reversed last month’s decision to approve the venture, to be called K-Dow Petrochemicals. Rohm & Haas, which today said the aborted Kuwait deal was “not a closing condition for the proposed merger,” fell 20 percent to $50.91 in New York trading. New York Times Co. rose 1 percent to $7.07 after the Financial Times reported the U.S. newspaper publisher is in talks with former Boston advertising executive Jack Connors about buying the Boston Globe newspaper and the Times’ stake in the Boston Red Sox Major League Baseball team. The FT cited an unidentified person familiar with the negotiations.

Source