Indications: U.S. stock futures point higher after retail data

Alert Email Print

By Kate Gibson & Steve Goldstein, MarketWatch

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock futures Friday added to their gains after a positive retail sales for February, with Wall Street poised to extend the week's advance.

"Stocks should rally because it's clear that credit conditions and globalization are improving, despite the concerns in the U.S. labor market," Todd Schoenberger, managing director at LandColt trading LLC, said of the 0.3% hike in U.S. retail sales in February, with the report better than anticipated by analysts who had factored in a negative impact on sales from last month's snowstorms. Read more.

S&P 500 futures rose 4.9 points to 1,150.8 and Nasdaq 100 futures added 5 points to 1,927.5. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 37 points.

Friday's session will also bring further economic reports, including consumer sentiment for March, as well as business inventories for January, both due at 10 a.m. Eastern.

Also on the economics front, President Obama is due to nominate San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Yellen has been a strong supporter of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's low-interest-rate policy.

"From reading virtually all of her speeches over the last few years and particularly the last few months, it is hard to imagine she would vote to outright tighten monetary policy in 2010 unless economic growth in the second half of the year proves to significantly more robust than the Fed is currently forecasting," said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak.

The U.S. dollar traded weaker against major rivals, notably the euro.

Oil futures were stronger, and gold futures added $6.70 an ounce.

The financial sector will be in the spotlight as a court-appointed examiner said demands from J.P. Morgan Chase /quotes/comstock/13*!jpm/quotes/nls/jpm (JPM 43.39, +0.21, +0.47%) and Citi /quotes/comstock/13*!c/quotes/nls/c (C 4.08, -0.10, -2.39%) for collateral helped to drive Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy, as the examiner also detailed a practice at Lehman in which it used repurchase agreements to make it appear that leverage was reduced. See related story.

TODAY'S INTERNATIONAL MARKET STORIES

Global Dow

• MarketWatch Topics: Greece • Asia Markets | Europe Markets | LatAm Markets • Canadian Markets | Israel Stocks | London • U.S.: Market Snapshot | After Hours

Tools• Latin American/Canadian indexes • European indexes | Asian indexes

More on the Markets • Bond Report | Oil News | Earnings Watch • Currencies | U.S. Economic Calendar

/conga/story/misc/international.html 53366

Shares of National Semiconductor /quotes/comstock/13*!nsm/quotes/nls/nsm (NSM 14.40, +0.06, +0.42%) rose 3.1% in pre-market trade after the company reported third-quarter profit more than doubled and predicted a 4% to 8% sequential revenue rise.

Meanwhile, Yara International of Norway formally gave up pursuit of Terra Industries /quotes/comstock/13*!tra/quotes/nls/tra (TRA 46.26, -0.64, -1.36%) , which will accept a bid from CF Industries /quotes/comstock/13*!cf/quotes/nls/cf (CF 96.73, -3.88, -3.86%) instead. Also on the fertilizer front, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Corp. /quotes/comstock/13*!pot/quotes/nls/pot (POT 125.58, +8.65, +7.40%) upped its earnings guidance on a sharp rebound in demand.

Terra shares fell 1.5%, CF shares dropped 5.1%, while Potash shares jumped 7.9%.

Asian shares ended mixed Friday, with Japanese exporter stocks helping Tokyo extend gains, while Chinese stocks declined on concerns more policy-tightening measures may be forthcoming to ease rising inflation.

In early afternoon Europe trade, markets were higher.

U.S. stocks gained Thursday for the third straight time, led by financials on buyout hopes as well as by a continued advance for firms that are partly owned by the U.S. government. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 44 points, the S&P 500 added 4 points and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 9 points.

Kate Gibson is a reporter for MarketWatch, based in New York. Steve Goldstein is MarketWatch's London bureau chief.