MW: U.S. stock futures up after weekly jobs and deficit reports
By Steve Goldstein & Kate Gibson, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock futures retained the bulk of an early advance on Thursday after data that had weekly jobless claims rising more than expected, but ongoing claims revised lower.
"The weekly print is a bit higher than expected, though the drop in continuing claims may offset," said Action Economics.
Separately, the government reported the nation's trade deficit unexpectedly narrowed in October.
S&P 500 futures rose 6.9 points to 1,102.5 and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 6.25 points to 1,798.75. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 51 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."
Indeed, the Bank of England, as expected, held interest rates at a record low of 0.5%. Central banks from Switzerland and Korea also held rates, though the Swiss central bank ended a program of buying corporate bonds.
The U.S. Federal Reserve determines interest rates next week.
The dollar index was off 0.1% after the early reports. Oil futures bounced higher after Wednesday's drop, up 40 cents to $71.07 a barrel.
Of stocks in the spotlight, Citi (C 3.90, +0.04, +1.04%) rose 1.3% amid widespread speculation that the New York bank may be able to repay its government rescue money soon. Bank of America (BAC 15.50, +0.11, +0.72%) on Wednesday repaid its $45 billion of TARP money.
Costco Wholesale (COST 59.42, +0.76, +1.30%) met estimates with a steady quarterly profit. Ciena (CIEN 12.85, -0.38, -2.87%) reported a worse-than-forecast $26.7 million quarterly loss on better-than-expected revenue.
AOL (AOL.WI 23.67, +0.17, +0.72%) is due to start trade after being spun off from Time Warner (TWX 29.25, -2.12, -6.76%) . In pre-market trade, the Internet services firm exchanged hands at $23.15 a share, off 2.2%.
Hershey (HSY 35.33, -0.25, -0.70%) and its controlling trust are close to a decision on whether to bid for U.K. chocolate producer Cadbury (CBY 51.11, +0.05, +0.10%) , according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
Despite stronger-than-expected jobs growth in Australia, stocks in Asia for the most part lost ground, with the Sydney benchmark index retreating 0.7%.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 rose 0.7% as banks recovered from losses earlier in the week on worries about sovereign debt in Dubai, Greece, Spain and elsewhere.
