BLBG: U.S. Index Futures Advance as S&P, Dow Trade Near Record Highs
(Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock-index futures rose, indicating equities will advance after closing near all-time highs, as investors looked to earnings and economic reports for clues on the economy’s strength.
Contracts on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index expiring in March added 0.2 percent to 2,113.3 at 7:29 a.m. in New York. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 15 points, or 0.1 percent, to 18,209. Both equity gauges traded near records on Wednesday as declines in Hewlett-Packard Co. and Apple Inc. offset gains among retailers amid corporate earnings. Futures on the Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 0.2 percent today, as the underlying measure closed near an all-time high reached during the dot-com era in 2000.
“U.S. companies’ earnings, such as Salesforce.com, beat expectations so that could be driving stocks higher,” said James Butterfill, the head of global equity strategy at Coutts & Co. in London. “Good corporate earnings add to arguments that global growth is intact.”
Stocks rallied this week after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said that inflation and wage growth remain too low for the central bank to raise rates at its next meeting.
The S&P 500 has gained 6 percent in February, poised for the best monthly performance since October 2011, while the Dow has added 6.2 percent.
The earnings season is drawing to a close, with 94 percent of companies having already reported. Of those, 74 percent beat profit projections and 56 percent topped sales estimates. Gap Inc. and Monster Beverage Corp. are among companies releasing financial results Thursday.
Analysts predict profit at S&P 500 companies will drop 4.5 percent in the current quarter after a 4.3 percent increase in the final three months of 2014, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Transocean Gains
Transocean Ltd. jumped 5.4 percent in premarket New York trading. The owner of the world’s biggest offshore rig fleet reported better-than-estimated fourth-quarter profit as it cut costs to weather a drilling downturn.
Salesforce.com Inc. soared 11 percent after it raised its revenue forecast for fiscal 2016 as it pushes into new businesses and bigger deals with long-standing customers.
Macquarie Infrastructure Co. fell 1.2 percent after increasing the size of a public offering and pricing the shares at $80 apiece.
Investors will also watch economic releases. Consumer prices in the U.S. dropped 0.1 percent in January from a year earlier, according to economist estimates. Separate reports are forecast to show that orders for durable goods advanced last month after sliding in December, while initial jobless claims increased last week.
To contact the reporters on this story: Alan Soughley in Frankfurt at asoughley@bloomberg.net; Roxana Zega in Zurich at rzega@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Cecile Vannucci at cvannucci1@bloomberg.net Alan Soughley, Namitha Jagadeesh