U.S. futures higher ahead of data; Dow Jones up 0.12%

Investing.com - U.S. stock futures pointed to a moderately higher open in thin year-end trade on Thursday, after a weak Italian debt sale while markets turned to U.S. data to be released later in the day.

Ahead of the open, the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures pointed to a rise of 0.12%, S&P 500 futures signaled a 0.20% increase, while the Nasdaq 100 futures indicated a 0.14% gain.

Italy’s Treasury sold just over EUR7 billion of long-term debt maturing between 2014 and 2022 earlier, below the maximum target of EUR8.5 billion.

Following the auction, the yield on Italy’s 10-year bonds traded at 7.1%, above the critical 7% threshold widely seen as unsustainable in the long-term.

The sale was seen as the first test of European banks' willingness to purchase long-term sovereign debt of distressed euro zone countries, following last week’s nearly EUR500 billion cash infusion by the European Central Bank.

Shares in the financial sector were expected to be active, after the Financial Times reported that the Federal Reserve has asked an industry task force to work on a plan to scale back systemic risk in the funding market and reduce trader dependence on the two clearing banks JP Morgan and Bank of New York Mellon.

JP Morgan saw shares advance 0.61% in after hour trading, while Bank of America was up 0.28% in pre-market.

Elsewhere, shares in Yahoo rose 0.32% after Alibaba Group hired a Washington lobbying firm in a sign that the Chinese e-commerce company would be willing to make a bid for all of the U.S. Internet company, in the event that talks to unwind their Asian partnership fail.

Alibaba also opened its group-buying platform, Juhuasuan.com, to other industry players such as Groupon's Chinese joint venture firm Gaopeng and the country's leading group-buying website Meituan.

Meanwhile, Sears was also to remain in focus as Standard and Poor’s placed the company’s credit rating on review for a possible downgrade, saying the retailer's plan to close at least 100 stores may not do much to improve its performance. Sears shares were up 0.15% in after hour trade.

Markets were also eyeing the release of U.S. jobless claims later in the day, after last week’s data fell unexpectedly to the lowest level since April 2008.

Across the Atlantic, European stock markets were mixed. The EURO STOXX 50 jumped advanced 0.15%, France’s CAC 40 added 0.16%, Germany's DAX rose 0.24%, while Britain's FTSE 100 inched down 0.07%.

During the Asian trading session, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 0.7%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index dipped 0.2%.

Later in the day, the U.S. was to release industry data on pending home sales and business conditions in the Chicago area, as well as an official report on crude oil stockpiles.