U.S. Stock-Index Futures Gain After Report on IMF Loan to Italy

By Nikolaj Gammeltoft - Nov 28, 2011 8:15 AM GMT+0700

U.S. stock futures rose, indicating the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will end a seven-day losing streak, amid optimism European leaders will do more to contain the region’s sovereign debt crisis and after Thanksgiving retail sales climbed to a record.

S&P 500 futures expiring in December advanced 2.1 percent to 1,177.10 at 10:10 a.m. Tokyo time. The index has lost 7.9 percent since Nov. 15, including the worst Thanksgiving week decline since 1932.

U.S. retail sales increased 16 percent to $52.4 billion during the Thanksgiving weekend, according to the National Retail Federation, citing a survey conducted by BIGresearch. The average shopper spent $398.62, up from $365.34 a year earlier.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti is set to propose more austerity measures this week to balance the country’s budget by 2013, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The IMF is preparing a 600 billion euro ($794 billion) loan for Italy in case the country’s debt crisis worsens, La Stampa reported, without saying where it got the information.

“It would be relief for money managers if we can just move Europe from a negative to a neutral impact on the market,” Dan Veru, chief investment officer at Fort Lee, New Jersey-based Palisade Capital Management LLC, which manages $3.4 billion, said in a telephone interview. “There’s an underpinning of growth in the U.S. and it’s picking up steam.”

More than $1.2 trillion has been erased from U.S. stocks since Nov. 15 as concern grew that Europe’s debt crisis will spread and American policy makers failed to reach agreement on reducing the federal budget.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nikolaj Gammeltoft in New York at ngammeltoft@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Baker at nbaker7@bloomberg.net; Nick Gentle at ngentle2@bloomberg.net