U.S. stock index futures posted small gains Thursday, pointing to a slightly higher open for Wall Street as traders eye upcoming economic data on weekly jobless claims and a final revision to fourth-quarter gross domestic product.
S&P 500 futures rose 7.9 points to 816.10 and Nasdaq 100 futures added 14 points to 1,247.50. Dow industrial futures rose 50 points.
A recent run of better-than-expected economic data has fed ideas that the early stages of a recovery may soon be at hand, said Nick Mitchell, a dealer at CMC Markets.
"This view is maybe a little premature but there are definitely some brighter signs starting to show themselves, and with the rally in stocks looking like it has yet further to go, you could forgive some for feeling a little more optimistic," he said.
The Labor Department will report initial jobless claims for the week ended March 21 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. Surveys point to a figure of 650,000 after a total of 646,000 the previous week.
The final fourth-quarter GDP revision, also set for release at 8:30 a.m., is expected to show the economy shrank 6.7% in the final three months of 2008, according to a MarketWatch survey of economists, compared to a previous estimate of a 6.2% contraction.
Investors will also be paying close attention to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's congressional testimony Thursday. He's expected to propose sweeping new financial regulations, including tougher government oversight of financial risk taking. See full story.
Among earnings data on tap for Thursday, electronics retailer Best Buy Co. is expected to report fourth-quarter earnings of $1.40 a share, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet Research.
Denbury Resources traded 11% higher in pre-open action as Standard & Poor's will add it to the S&P 500, replacing Rohm and Haas, which is being bought by Dow Chemical.
The dollar rose 0.8% versus the Japanese yen. Oil futures rose by 89 cents to $53.66 a barrel while gold futures were steady.
The Nikkei 225 ended with a strong rise, up 1.8%, while the FTSE 100 edged 0.2% lower in London.
Shares of the world's top bank by market capitalization, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, rallied in Shanghai after Goldman Sachs said it would only sell a small part of its 4.9% stake.
U.S. stocks ended the day Wednesday on a positive note. Support was tied in part to a surprising rise in demand for durable goods items and an unexpected rise in new home sales.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 89.84 points, or 1.2%, to close at 7,749.81 on Wednesday. The S&P 500 index added 7.63 points, or 1%, to 813.88 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 12.43 points, or 0.9%, to 1,528.95.
