Stock index futures rose on Wednesday, taking a cue from gains in global markets, as the prospects of a rescue plan for heavily indebted Greece strengthened sentiment.

Investors awaited comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who is expected to outline the central bank's strategy for withdrawing its extraordinary stimulus measures. His prepared testimony before the House Financial Services Committee will be released at 10:00 a.m. EST, even though the hearing has been postponed due to snow.

European governments have agreed in principle to help Greece, German coalition sources told Reuters. However, a German government spokesman said a decision has not yet been reached.

Shares in Walt Disney Co rose late Tuesday after the media and entertainment company reported better-than-expected earnings following a strong performance at its cable television division and cost cuts at its film studio.

S&P 500 futures rose 3 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures were up 26 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures gained 6.5 points.

In Europe, shares gained more than 1 percent, while in Asia, Japan's Nikkei average rose 0.3 percent.

On Tuesday, the Dow posted its largest one-day percentage gain in three months, boosted by reports of the aid plan for Greece.

China's top search engine Baidu Inc was up 9.4 percent at $476.09 in premarket trade a day after it gave a strong outlook and said it would gain from Google Inc's high-profile threat to exit the country.

Meanwhile, Google is tapping its huge grid of Gmail users and Web surfers to create an online social networking system to compete with Facebook and Twitter.

(Reporting by Leah Schnurr; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

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