STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Thursday, 5 June 2014

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20. U.S. Stock-Index Futures Gain on ECB Policy Action

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-05/u-s-stock-index-futures-are-little-changed-before-ecb.html

U.S. stock-index futures advanced as the European Central Bank lowered interest rates to boost the economy and promised more policy decisions later today.

Sprint Corp. advanced 1.6 percent in early New York trading after people with knowledge of the matter said it is nearing a price agreement for a potential acquisition of T-Mobile US Inc. Twitter Inc. added 1.8 percent after Pacific Crest Securities started coverage of the shares with a rating similar to buy.

Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) expiring this month rose 0.2 percent to 1,928.8 at 7:56 a.m. in New York. The benchmark equity gauge gained 0.2 percent yesterday to an all-time high amid better-than-estimated data on service industries. Dow Jones Industrial Average contracts increased 40 points, or 0.2 percent, to 16,758 today.

“The ECB decision comes in broadly as expected and volatility is picking up in the markets,” Ion-Marc Valahu, a co-founder and fund manager at Clairinvest in Geneva, wrote in an e-mail. “We’ve just got one piece of the puzzle. We will get more details when Draghi speaks at the press conference in 45 minutes.”