SF: U.S. Stock-Index Futures Rise; Freeport, Schlumberger Advance
Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock-index futures rose, indicating that the Standard & Poor's 500 Index will extend yesterday's gain, as investors awaited a report on initial jobless claims in the world's largest economy.
Schlumberger Ltd., the world's biggest oilfield-services contractor, gained in Paris as crude oil rose. Alcoa Inc., the largest U.S. aluminum producer, and Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. followed metal prices higher.
September contracts on the S&P 500 advanced 0.2 percent to 1,056.5 at 7:27 a.m. in New York. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures gained 0.1 percent to 10,058 and Nasdaq-100 Index futures added 0.2 percent to 1,792.5.
"Historically the U.S. recovered strongly from recessions, but this time the recovery is taking more time and is much weaker," said Jacques Porta, a Paris-based fund manager at Ofi Patrimoine who helps oversee about $425 million in stocks. "Employment is a very important factor in the U.S. because it determines domestic demand, which is the motor of the recovery."
Claims for jobless benefits declined to 490,000 last week from a nine-month high of half a million the prior week, according to the median estimate of 48 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The Labor Department is due to release the data today at 8:30 a.m. in Washington.
New Birinyi Forecast
Birinyi Associates Inc. lowered its year-end forecast for the S&P 500 by 7.5 percent to 1,225, saying companies from Wal- Mart Stores Inc. to Procter & Gamble Co. are unlikely to erase their declines this year.
The new estimate implies a 16 percent advance from yesterday's closing price and a full-year increase of 9.9 percent. There's a 20 percent chance the benchmark gauge for U.S. stocks will trade in a range of 1,000 to 1,150, buoyed by corporate buybacks and mergers while dragged down by slower economic growth, according to the report by the research and money-management firm founded by Laszlo Birinyi.
U.S. stocks rose yesterday, with the Dow average recovering from an early 102-point slide, as investors speculated that recent declines in equities overshot the potential damage from a slowdown in the economy.
Schlumberger climbed 1 percent to $55.23 as crude oil for October delivery rose to $73.41 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Alcoa rose 1.4 percent to $10.25 in Germany as copper, lead, nickel, tin and zinc rose on the London Metal Exchange. Freeport, the world's largest publicly traded copper producer, added 0.5 percent to $67 in early New York trading.
European basic-resource shares posted the biggest gain among 19 industry groups in the Stoxx Europe 600 Index today, rising as much as 2.1 percent.
Bank of America Corp. gained 0.7 percent to $12.74 in composite European trading. Merrill Lynch & Co., which was purchased by Bank of America last year, was awarded $9.4 million from its former Indonesian private-banking client Prem Harjani and his company for defrauding the bank and failing to pay for shares purchased.
