Stock Futures Climb on China Data

FOX Business: Capitalism Lives Here

Encouraging data from China helped lift U.S. stock-index futures despite Bank of America taking a quarterly loss on legal expenses.

Today's Markets

As of 8:00 a.m. ET, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures climbed 64 points, or 0.39%, to 16269, S&P 500 futures advanced 8 points, or 0.43%, to 1848 and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 16.2 points, or 0.46%, to 3508.

The markets have been recovering after Wall Street's worst week since 2012. The optimism extended into Wednesday on strong data from China.

The world's second-biggest economy grew at an annual pace of 7.4% in the first quarter, narrowly beating estimates of 7.3%. The strong data helped alleviate concerns that China could be in for a so-called hard landing, in which growth would drastically slow down, which would hit many other economies.

Still, many analysts struck a cautious tone.

"We maintain our view that GDP growth is on a downtrend and we continue to expect it to slow to 7.1% in (the second quarter)," analysts at Japan-based Nomura wrote in a note to clients.

"We believe the government will not announce any new easing measures in April as it waits to see how the economy responds to the current fiscal easing measures."

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department reports starts of new home construction rose 2.8% in March to an annualized rate of 946,000, short of expectations for an increase to 973,000. Permits fell 2.4% in the same month to an annualized rate of 990,000, also below Wall Street views of a drop to 1.01 million. New home construction is seen having rebounded in March after weather weighed the market down during the first two months of the year.

The Federal Reserve's anecdotal Beige Book report is due out at 2 p.m. ET.

In corporate news, Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) swung to a first-quarter loss on a $6 billion litigation expense as the No. 2 U.S. bank faces a series of lawsuits from regulators. Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) shares climbed amid stronger-than-expected quarterly results.

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and American Express (NYSE:AXP) both post their results after the close of trading.

Elsewhere, U.S. crude oil futures jumped by 96 cents, or 0.93%, to $104.71 a barrel. Wholesale New York Harbor gasoline rose 0.1% to $3.045 a gallon. Gold rose $1.70, or 0.13%, to $1,302 a troy ounce.