Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock-index futures advanced after analysts boosted their recommendations on EBay Inc. and MasterCard Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein said financial markets are recovering. EBay climbed 1.9 percent after Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. said the company’s core online auction business is “turning around.” MasterCard and Capital One Financial Corp. advanced after they were raised by Citigroup Inc. on expectations that credit spending will improve. “The financial markets are in recovery,” Blankfein said at banking conference in Frankfurt today. “The worst of this crisis is off the table.” Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index expiring this month rose 0.3 percent to 1,028 as of 8:31 a.m. in New York. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures gained 0.2 percent to 9,511. Nasdaq-100 Index futures added 0.1 percent to 1,657.25. EBay, owner of the most visited U.S. e-commerce Web site, advanced 1.9 percent to $22.25 in early New York trading after Bernstein raised its rating to “outperform” from “market perform” and lifted its share-price estimate 17 percent to $28. MasterCard, the second-biggest credit-card company after Visa Inc., rose 0.7 percent to $209. Capital One, the McLean, Virginia-based credit-card company, climbed 2.3 percent to $36.24. “The credit cycle has begun to recover for U.S. credit cards,” Citigroup’s Donald Fandetti wrote in a report. Morgan Stanley climbed 2.3 percent to $28.45. The sixth- biggest U.S. bank by assets was raised to “overweight” from “neutral” by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co., who said they are “switching preference from investment banks to credit banks on regulatory changes.” Beige Book The S&P 500 has rebounded 52 percent from a 12-year low on March 9 as reports from consumer confidence to home sales signaled the recession is easing and companies from Johnson & Johnson to Goldman Sachs posted earnings that beat analysts’ estimates. The Federal Reserve will publish its Beige Book business survey today at 2 p.m. in Washington. The rally has pushed valuations in the benchmark index for U.S. equities to about 18.9 times the reported earnings of its companies, near the highest level since June 2004, according to weekly data compiled by Bloomberg. “Investors should be prepared for some additional near- term corrective action,” Robert Doll, the global chief investment officer at BlackRock Inc., wrote in an e-mail to journalists yesterday. “Stocks are no longer as cheap as they were several months ago. Conditions may be overbought and there is still a great deal of uncertainty over the outlook.” Lazard Ltd. dropped 4.1 percent after the investment bank led by Bruce Wasserstein said some shareholders agreed to sell 5.22 million shares in an underwritten public offering. The shares declined $1.60 to $37.40. Lazard said it won’t receive any proceeds from the sale. Vivus Inc. soared 53 percent to $10.55. The developer of treatments for sexual dysfunction and obesity said its Qnexa drug helped patients lose enough weight in studies to allow the biotechnology company to seek U.S. approval to sell the treatment this year.

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