By Steve Goldstein, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock futures edged higher Thursday ahead of data that could show a decline in weekly jobless claims.
S&P 500 futures rose 4 points to 1,099.60 and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 5.75 points to 1,798.20. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 25 points.
U.S. stocks rose Wednesday, buoyed by an upgrade for Dow component 3M. The blue-chip index rose 51 points, the Nasdaq Composite added 11 points and the S&P 500 rose 4 points.
"The [global] economic news has been better across most regions, helped by growing confidence in the financial markets," said economists at ING. "It remains to be seen how robust this will be in the face of policy tightening, but this is not an imminent threat."
Thursday's key release will be weekly jobless claims, due out 8:30 a.m. Eastern, and economists polled by MarketWatch expect the statistics to show a decline to 450,000 from 457,000.
The dollar index fell modestly ahead of that report. Oil futures bounced higher after Wednesday's drop, up 51 cents to $71.18 a barrel.
Of stocks in the spotlight, Costco Wholesale (COST 58.66, -0.09, -0.15%) met estimates with a steady quarterly profit.
Ciena (CIEN 13.23, +0.29, +2.24%) , and after the close, National Semiconductor (NSM 15.52, +0.35, +2.31%) , are due to report results.
AOL (AOL.WI 23.67, +0.17, +0.72%) is due to start trade after being spun off from Time Warner (TWX 31.33, +0.68, +2.22%) .
Hershey (HSY 35.30, -0.28, -0.79%) and its controlling trust are close to a decision on whether to bid for U.K. chocolate producer Cadbury (CBY 51.14, +0.03, +0.06%) , according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
Despite stronger-than-expected jobs growth in Australia, stocks in Asia lost ground, with the Sydney benchmark index retreating 0.7%.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 rose 0.5% as banks recovered from losses earlier in the week on worries about sovereign debt in Dubai, Greece, Spain and elsewhere.
