US Stock Futures Up Ahead Of Citigroup Earnings

Pre-open movers US stock futures rose in early pre-market trade, ahead of earnings from some major companies. The Empire State manufacturing index for October will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 31 points to 15,256.00, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index futures rose 2.20 points to 1,706.50. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index gained 7.75 points to 3,256.00. A Peek Into Global Markets European markets were higher today, with the Spanish Ibex Index rising 0.45%, London's FTSE 100 index gaining 0.81% and STOXX Europe 600 Index surging 0.72%. German DAX 30 index climbed 0.72% and French CAC 40 Index rose 0.65%. French consumer price index fell 0.2% on the month in September, while on a yearly basis the index rose 0.9%. Asian markets ended mixed today. Japan's Nikkei Stock Average gained 0.26%, China's Shanghai Composite fell 0.19% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 0.51%. Australia's ASX/S&P500 surged 1.01% and India's Sensex declined 0.29%. Broker Recommendation Analysts at Jefferies upgraded Microsoft MSFT from “hold” to “buy.” The target price for Microsoft has been raised from $33 to $42. Microsoft's shares gained 1.04% to $34.81 in pre-market trading. Breaking news

• Spherix SPEX announced today that it has hired Michael Pollack to serve as its Interim Chief Financial Officer. To read the full news, click here.
• Apple AAPL today announced that Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry, will be joining Apple in a newly created position, as a senior vice president and member of our executive team, reporting to CEO Tim Cook. To read the full news, click here.
• TripAdvisor TRIP today announced it has acquired Oyster.com, a hotel review website site featuring expert reviews and photos covering about 150 cities. To read the full news, click here.
• Wi-LAN WILN today announced that WiLAN and Hewlett-Packard HPQ have entered into a patent license agreement and settled all pending patent litigation. To read the full news, click here.