U.S. stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Thursday after Alcoa posted better-than-expected quarterly results and gave a positive tone to the start of the second-quarter earnings season.
Investors bet on Thursday the United States would not go as far as shutting down UBS there in a dispute over tax, instead expecting the Swiss bank to be hit by a hefty fine as part of a swift out-of-court settlement.
Costco Wholesale Corp on Thursday reported an in-line 6 percent fall in sales, hit by a slide in demand during the recession for higher ticket items such as cameras and cell phones.
Oil rose by more than $1 on Thursday to edge back above $61 a barrel, halting a six-session losing streak which has seen prices decline by 15 percent on concerns about the timing of any economic recovery.
Forecast-beating results from U.S. bellwether Alcoa helped lift European stocks and draw global equities out of the red on Thursday, while currency markets reversed some of their recent cautious patterns.
Costco Wholesale Corp on Thursday reported a 6 percent fall in sales at stores open at least a year in June, in line with market expectation.
Japan led a fall in Asian stocks on Thursday after the yen spiked to a five-month high against the dollar, with investors seeking to trim riskier bets amid concerns about the health of the global economy.
Oil rebounded toward $61 a barrel on Thursday, correcting from a seven-week low hit on bearish oil data that outlined continued weak demand amid growing concerns about the pace of economic recovery.
CIT Group Inc , a commercial U.S. lender struggling to finance its business, is pressing U.S. regulators to allow it to issue government-backed bonds to allay concerns over its financial health, the Financial Times reported on its website late on Wednesday.
A fresh wave of cyber attacks that slowed U.S. and South Korean websites this week could come later on Thursday, a web security firm said, while the South's spy agency has said the hacking may be linked to North Korea.
Some South Korean and U.S. Internet sites were down or slowed to a crawl for a third day on Thursday after attacks by a hacker that Seoul's National Intelligence Service said may be linked to a cyber warfare unit in the North.
Oil rebounded toward $61 a barrel on Thursday, correcting from a seven-week low hit on bearish oil data that outlined continued weak demand amid growing concerns about the pace of economic recovery.
More than 31 million Americans watched Michael Jackson's public memorial on television, but mystery surrounded the whereabouts of his body on Wednesday and plans for his burial.
Bank of America Corp and JPMorgan Chase & Co are switching some customers who have fixed-rate credit cards to potentially higher variable rates, acting before a new law takes effect that limits what card issuers can charge.
A U.S. official denied an Israeli newspaper report on Wednesday that Washington had agreed to the continued construction of 2,500 housing units in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, despite its calls for a freeze.
Telecommunications giant AT&T struck back on Wednesday at Sen. Herb Kohl, chair of a congressional antitrust panel, saying the lawmaker's concerns about a lack of competition in the wireless industry were unfounded.
A judge ordered the U.S. government to say whether it was prepared to shut Swiss bank UBS AG in the United States as part of a battle to learn the identity of 52,000 secret accounts suspected of being used by Americans to avoid taxes.
Australian Dollar: The Australian Dollar opens lower on Thursday at 0.7780 in what may be the beginning of the correction we had to have.
Alcoa Inc posted a third consecutive quarterly loss on Wednesday, but cost cuts helped the largest U.S. aluminum maker beat Wall Street estimates by a large margin, sending its stock higher.
Senators Harry Reid, Robert Menendez and Orrin Hatch, accompanied by Texas oilman T Boone Pickens on Wednesday introduced newly proposed a Natural gas legislation. The G8 agreed on Wednesday to try to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. The head of the American Petroleum Institute Jack Gerard called for more drilling to bring additional domestic energy supplies to the marketplace
The Obama administration on Wednesday said it strongly opposed legislation in the U.S. Congress that would restrict its ability to respond to future financial crises through the International Monetary Fund.
The Dow and the Nasdaq eked out gains on Wednesday as a late-stage rally brought stocks off their lows on hopes that the quarterly earnings season would deliver good news.
