By Michael P. Regan March 3 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock-index futures rebounded from their lows of the day after ADP Employer Services said private employment may grow in March for the first time in two years. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index expiring this month increased less than 0.1 percent to 1,117.7 at 8:19 a.m. in New York after retreating as much as 0.2 percent earlier. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were unchanged at 10,399 after falling as much as 19 points. The S&P 500 yesterday rose to the highest since Jan. 20 on prospects for improving earnings at banks, more corporate takeovers and a possible resolution to Greece’s fiscal problems. The benchmark index for U.S. equities has declined 2.8 percent from this year’s high on Jan. 19 amid concern that widening budget gaps in Greece, Spain and Portugal will send Europe into another recession. Greece’s government passed measures today to cut spending by an additional 2.4 billion euros and raise an extra 2.4 billion euros in revenue, Deputy Citizen Protection Minister Spyros Vougias said. The Cabinet also decided to cut civil servants’ bonus-salary payments by 30 percent, to freeze pensions and to raise the main value-added tax to 21 percent from 19 percent, Vougias told reporters after the meeting today in Athens. Service industries in the U.S. probably expanded at a faster pace in February, a sign the pickup in manufacturing is trickling to the rest of the economy, economists said before a report at 10 a.m. New York time. The Institute for Supply Management’s index of non- manufacturing businesses, which make up almost 90 percent of the economy, rose to 51 from 50.5, according to the median estimate of 72 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Source