U.S. Stock Futures Rise on Greece Report

By Rita Nazareth - Feb 9, 2012 8:50 PM GMT+0700

U.S. stock futures rose, a day after the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose to a seven-month high, as Greek politicians reached an austerity deal needed to secure a bailout package and American jobless claims fell.

Visa Inc. (V), the biggest payments network, climbed 3.8 percent as profit soared 16 percent. Akamai Technologies Inc. (AKAM), the operator of a server network that lets businesses speed data delivery, surged 16 percent as sales beat estimates. Groupon Inc., the largest daily-deal site, tumbled 11 percent after reporting an unexpected tax-related loss. DirecTV (DTV) slumped 1.4 percent after Macquarie Group Ltd. cut its recommendation for the biggest U.S. satellite-television provider.

S&P 500 futures expiring in March rose 0.2 percent to 1,349.20 at 8:46 a.m. New York time. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures gained 17 points, or 0.1 percent, to 12,860.

Stock-futures reversed losses as European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said Greek party leaders reached an austerity deal. The ECB left the benchmark interest rate at a record low of 1 percent. U.S. jobless claims unexpectedly declined last week, indicating the labor market recovery is gaining traction.

Equities rose yesterday as the MSCI All-Country World Index gained 20 percent from its October low, meeting the definition of a bull market. The S&P 500 yesterday closed 1 percent away from its peak nine months ago of 1,363.61, which was the highest level since June 2008. The index has risen 7.3 percent this year amid better-than-expected economic data and corporate profits.

Bull Market

As global stocks return to a bull market, the losers in the U.S. are companies least tied to economic growth.

For the first time since 1999, S&P 500 utilities, phone companies and providers of consumer staples posted the only monthly losses, slumping at least 1.5 percent with dividends in January, and continued to lag behind this month. It’s a reversal from 2011, when the three defensive industries returned more than 6.3 percent as investors embraced stocks thought to do well during a slowdown.

“Last year, investors tended to hide in things which are stable, paying reasonable dividends,” said Sudhir Nanda, a money manager and head of the quantitative equity group at T. Rowe Price Group Inc. in Baltimore, which oversees $489.5 billion. “This year, people looked at the U.S. and said, ‘Things are not really that bad.’ If the economy is humming, people tend to buy more of the sectors which will profit from growth, industrials, materials and things like that.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Rita Nazareth in New York at rnazareth@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Baker at nbaker7@bloomberg.net