05/10/2011
U.S. stock-index futures extended gains after a private report showed employers added more jobs than economists forecast in September.
Futures on the S&P 500 expiring in December climbed 0.7 percent to 1,121.20 at 8:17 a.m. in New York, signaling the benchmark index for American equity may rise for a second day.
Companies in the U.S. added 91,000 jobs in September, according to data from ADP Employer Services. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for an advance of 75,000.
U.S. stocks rallied yesterday, driving the S&P 500 up 4.1 percent in the final 50 minutes of trading. The index earlier plunged 2.2 percent, to a level that marked more than a 20 percent drop from the gauge’s April peak, the threshold of a bear market. Concern governments may be running out of tools to keep the global economic slowdown from worsening has left equity benchmarks from Sao Paulo to Hong Kong and Frankfurt in bear markets.
Stocks reversed losses in the final hour of trading yesterday after a report in the Financial Times quoted Olli Rehn, European commissioner for economic affairs, as saying there is an “increasingly shared view” that the region needs a coordinated approach to recapitalize the region’s struggling banks. .
Moody’s Investors Service cut Italy’s credit rating after the close of U.S. trading. The downgrade, the first in almost two decades, came on concern Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government will fail to cut the region’s second-largest debt amid weak growth. Moody’s lowered Italy’s rating three levels to A2 from Aa2, with a negative outlook. The action followed a ratings cut by S&P on Sept. 20.
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