Stock futures steady ahead of more bank earnings

NEW YORK — U.S. stock futures are little changed as investors look for more evidence that the economy is on the path to recovery.

The market marked time a day after JPMorgan Chase’s upbeat earnings report on Wednesday helped propel the Dow Jones industrials past the 10,000 mark for the first time in a year.

Earnings reports from Citigroup Inc., Southwest Airlines and McClatchy Co. are on tap. And tech firms Google Inc., IBM Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices will issue their results after the market’s close Thursday.

Bank earnings are a particular focus for the market, as a healthy banking system is integral to a strong economy, and the best indication yet that the market has recovered from the financial devastation of last fall.

On Wednesday, the Dow jumped 144 points to close at 10,015 — its biggest gain since Aug. 21 and highest close since Oct. 3 last year. Broader stock indexes also rallied to 2009 highs.

Ahead of the market’s open, Dow Jones industrial average futures rose 8, or 0.1 percent, to 9,960. Standard & Poor’s 500 index futures rose 0.60, or 0.1 percent, to 1,088.30, while Nasdaq 100 index futures fell 1.00, or 0.1 percent, to 1,746.75.

The Dow is now up 53 percent since hitting a 12-year low in March, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index is up 61.4 percent and the Nasdaq composite is up 71.2 percent. Some believe the market is overvalued, given the problems that still plague the economy, including high unemployment.

The earnings reports from major corporations are the key to keeping the market’s rally going. Investors want to see companies grow their profits through sales and not just cost-cutting, which would signal that consumers and businesses are becoming more comfortable spending again.

JPMorgan, the first major bank to report its quarterly results, set a high bar for its peers on Wednesday, reporting a $3.59 billion profit that came in well above Wall Street’s expectations. Though the bank said it expects loan losses to remain high well into the future, business in its investment and retail banking divisions is booming, and should help to offset those losses.

Also Thursday, investors will get a number of economic reports, including the Labor Department’s weekly tally of initial claims for jobless benefits, as well as its September report on inflation.

Economists believe new claims for jobless benefits likely rose slightly last week to 525,000. First-time claims, an indicator of recent layoffs, fell in the prior week to their lowest level since early January. Separately, economists expect the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index rose just 0.2 percent in September, after a 0.4 percent gain in August and a flat reading in July.

In other trading, bond prices fell. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 3.44 percent from 3.42 percent late Wednesday.

The dollar was mixed against other major currencies. Gold prices slid about $10 to $1,054.

Oil prices added 3 cents to $75.21 a barrel in electronic premarket trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average jumped 1.8 percent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.5 percent. In late morning trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.2 percent, Germany’s DAX index was down 0.01 percent, and France’s CAC-40 was up 0.1 percent.