Stock index futures rose on Monday, pointing to an equities rebound after the S&P's worst weekly performance so far this year as investors looked ahead to February pending home sales data.
The benchmark S&P index fell 0.5 percent last week, a relatively minor decline but still the biggest weekly slide since the final week of December.
Rising optimism about economic growth has kept market participants piling into equities, giving strength and consistency to an upward trend that looked set to continue with theS&P 500 still near its highest point since May 2008. The Nasdaq has risen for six straight weeks.
Energy stocks will be in focus as crude oil prices fell 0.2 percent, though they remained up almost 8 percent for the year on worries about supply disruptions from the Middle East. Rising prices are viewed as a headwind for the economy.
S&P 500 futures rose 4.5 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures added 48 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 13.75 points.
The S&P 500 has been finding strong support at its 14-day moving average, near 1,386. The index closed at 1,397.11 on Friday.
Pending home sales are seen rising 1 percent in February after increasing 2 percent in the previous month. Data on the housing market continues to be weak, with the government reporting last week that new home sales fell 1.6 percent. The pendinghome sales data will be released at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT).
Apollo Group Inc is the only S&P 500 company scheduled to report results on Monday.
BATS Global Markets Inc on Sunday issued a statement apologizing for a system failure that caused its own shares to erroneously trade for less than a penny on Friday and resulted in Apple Inc's shares being temporarily halted.
Chief Executive Joe Ratterman called the incident a "devastating moment," and said the company's withdrawn IPO was on hold "for the foreseeable future.
U.S. stocks rose in light volume on Friday, buoyed by rising energy and basic materials shares.
SOURCE Reuters
