(MENAFN– ecpulse) Wall Street has been buoyed by strong macro data this week, and especially yesterday that saw it chalk up its strongest session in 2014 so far.
U.S. stock futures signaled a higher open Wednesday.
-Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.209% to 16333
-Futures on the NASDAQ 100 gained 0.180% to 1836.20
-Futures on the S&P 500 index gained 0.350% to 3586.25 . As of 06:15 a.m. ET
Wall Street has been buoyed by yesterday`s announcement from the Commerce Department that retail sales rose 0.2 percent last month after a 0.4 percent advance the prior month.
The gauge of consumer spending was viewed as particularly important in light of last Friday`s dismal jobs report for December, which had the government reporting the addition of 74,000 to nonfarm payrolls , far below estimates of about 200,000.
Corporate Results
U.S. markets are for another raft of earnings updates from major companies including United Tech , Freeport-McMoRan , Norfolk Southern , and St. Jude Medical .
Motorola Solutions will also release their earnings report today, with earnings per share (EPS) for the fourth quarter of 2013 expected to hit $1.38 on revenue of $2.486 billion, in comparison to the previous year`s fourth-quarter results, which saw EPS at $1.18 on revenue of $2.441 billion.
After the bell, Netflix will announce its fourth-quarter results, with EPS expected at $0.66 on revenue of $1.167 billion, which would be a significant increase from the 2012 fourth-quarter results that saw revenue of $945.24 million and EPS of $0.13.
Netflix had a successful weekend after Robin Wright won best actress for House of Cards at the Golden Globes, the first such award for an online-only web television series.
Yesterday, the U.S. bank earnings season opened with a solid start from JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo . Wells Fargo, the nation`s biggest mortgage lender, reported an 11 percent rise in fourth-quarter profit as bad-loan provisions fell sharply .
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