U.S. Stock Futures Advance as ECB Buys Italian Bonds; Cisco Shares Rally

By Sarah Jones - Nov 10, 2011 5:18 PM GMT+0700

U.S. stock futures rose, signaling the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will rebound from its biggest selloff since August, as the European Central Bank bought Italian bonds.

Bank of America Corp. (BAC), the second-largest U.S. lender, climbed in early New York trading. Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) rallied 3.6 percent in Germany after earnings topped analyst estimates.

S&P 500 futures expiring in December advanced 1.1 percent to 1,239.2 at 10:16 a.m. in London after the benchmark gauge sank 3.7 percent yesterday. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures expiring the same month gained 96 points, or 0.8 percent, to 11,828 today.

“There is a sense that most of the activity this morning has been short covering as opposed to real buying,” said Ioan Smith, a director at Knight Capital Europe Ltd. in London. “Rallies are likely to be shallow though as events have shifted rapidly in the euro zone, which threatens to pull core member states into the mix.”

Futures and European stocks rebounded as the ECB bought Italian government bonds, according to three people familiar with the transactions. Italian government bonds rose, driving the yields lower on two-year notes and 10-year securities.

U.S. stocks extended a global selloff yesterday, erasing the S&P 500’s month-to-date gain, after a surge in Italian bond yields to euro-era records, intensified concern that Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis is worsening. Italy’s 10-year bond yield yesterday closed at 7.25 percent, near levels that prompted Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek bailouts.

Italy’s Debt

At 1.9 trillion euros ($2.6 trillion), Italy’s debt exceeds that of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland combined. Unlike those nations, Italy has systemic importance as the world’s the eighth-biggest economy.

Italy sold 5 billion euros of 1-year Treasury bills as borrowing costs rose. The average yield on the bills was 6.087 percent, the Rome-based Treasury said today.

Bank of America climbed 1.6 percent to $6.26 in early New York trading. Morgan Stanley (MS) gained 0.6 percent to $15.86 in German trading.

Cisco Systems jumped 3.6 percent to $18.25 in Germany after the world’s biggest maker of networking equipment reported fiscal first-quarter profit and sales that exceeded analysts’ estimates, bolstered by a turnaround effort and demand for data centers.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sarah Jones in London at sjones35@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew Rummer at arummer@bloomberg.net