CHARTSTALKER

[JustDoIt]

Futures up and Oil down - could be a good day....
U.S. stock futures rose on Thursday, pointing to a higher market open, as oil prices fell toward $48 a barrel and Wall Street seemed encouraged that the Federal Reserve would not accelerate its pace of interest rate hikes.

In corporate news, software makers grabbed the spotlight after PeopleSoft Inc.'s (PSFT) board unanimously rejected again Oracle Corp.'s (ORCL) $8.8 billion hostile tender offer.

Shares of Starbucks Corp. (SBUX) fell in after hours trade on Wednesday as a 47 percent surge in the coffee shop chain's quarterly net profit failed to beat Wall Street estimates.

As the earnings season heads down the closing stretch, discount retailing chain Target Corp. (TGT) will report its quarterly results ahead of the market open.










One strategist said that the relative peace following the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was a positive for the market.

S&P 500 futures were up 3.8 points, above fair value accounting for interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract.

Dow Jones industrial index futures rose 38 points, while Nasdaq 100 futures gained 8.5 points.

"I think the market is focusing on the benign interest rate outlook. The outlook was really very encouraging, as it was clear that we're not going to see rates pushed up so high that it would restrict economic growth," said Hilary Cook, director of investment strategy at Barclays Stockbrokers.

The Fed on Wednesday said further interest-rate rises were likely to remain at a "measured" pace, touching off a brief rally in blue-chip stocks after it raised the fed funds rate by a quarter percentage point to 2 percent.

That reassurance from the Fed was offset by a jump in crude oil prices and the Dow quickly trimmed its gains on Wednesday with stocks ending flat.

But oil prices eased on Thursday as signs of strong supply on physical crude markets encouraged dealers to take profits from a bounce in the previous session.

U.S. light crude slipped under $49 a barrel to trade 56 cents a barrel lower at $48.30, more than $7 lower than the record $55.67 peak struck in late October.

Trading was expected to be relatively subdued which is Veteran's Day. U.S. fixed-income markets will remain shut but stock markets will open as usual.

Blockbuster Inc. (BBI), the largest U.S. video rental chain, has offered $700 million for Hollywood Entertainment (HLYW), the second-largest U.S. video chain, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Meanwhile, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) has unveiled a preliminary version of its Web search engine late on Wednesday, in its first attack on Google (GOOG) leading position in the market.