BLBG:U.S. Stock Futures Gain Before ECB Policy Decision
U.S. stock futures rose, indicating the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will climb for a fourth day, as investors awaited the outcome of a European Central Bank meeting and reports on employment in the world’s biggest economy.
Boeing (BA) Co. added 0.4 percent in composite European trading after winning the Pentagon’s largest military contract in the month of September.
S&P 500 futures expiring in December increased 0.4 percent to 1,450.3 at 7:30 a.m. in New York. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures expiring the same month rose 46 points, or 0.3 percent, to 13,472.
“Investors want more details on the ECB’s outright monetary transactions,” said Manish Singh, the head of investment at Crossbridge Capital in London, which manages more than $2 billion. “The tape remains the same as investors still feel a Spanish bailout is happening sooner rather than later; so a market selloff isn’t gaining traction, which is a good sign heading into the fourth quarter.”
The S&P 500 rose for a third day yesterday after ADP Employer Services said companies added 162,000 jobs last month, exceeding economists’ estimates.
The ADP release came two days before a government jobs report. Economists forecast that the Labor Department’s release will show that the economy created 115,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate increased to 8.2 percent from 8.1 percent. A release at 8:30 a.m. in Washington today will show initial jobless claims rose to 370,000 last week from 359,000 in the previous week, according to economists’ estimates.
Factory Orders
Another release today may show factory orders declined 5.9 percent in August, after increasing 2.8 percent in July, economists surveyed by Bloomberg said.
The Federal Open Market Committee will release the minutes of its latest policy meeting at 2 p.m.
The Bank of England left its bond-purchase target at 375 billion pounds ($604 billion), as forecast by all 40 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. By next month’s meeting, they will have finished spending the 50 billion-pound round of quantitative easing that they started in July.
The European Central Bank, which also holds a policy meeting today, will keep its benchmark interest rate at a record low of 0.75 percent, economists in a Bloomberg survey predicted. The ECB will announce the decision at 1:45 p.m. in Ljubljana, Slovenia, 45 minutes before its president Mario Draghi speaks at a press briefing.
Boeing Climbs
Boeing added 0.4 percent to $70.15 after the world’s biggest aerospace company won a $1.9 billion contract to supply P-8 maritime patrol planes on Sept. 21. That headed a list of more than 670 awards the Defense Department announced in September, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT) lost 0.3 percent to $11.13 in German trading. The company will eliminate as much as 9 percent of its workforce because of lackluster demand for personal computers. Applied Materials is the largest producer of chipmaking equipment.
The company will cut 900 to 1,300 jobs, resulting in pretax costs of $180 million to $230 million, through a voluntary retirement program and other actions. The restructuring will save $140 million to $190 million a year, Applied Materials said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Adria Cimino in Paris at acimino1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew Rummer at arummer@bloomberg.net.
