US Stock Futures Surge Ahead Of Beige Book, Bank of America Earnings

US stock futures jumped in early pre-market trading, ahead of earnings from Bank of America

and Google

. The Housing starts report for March will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET, while industrial production data for March will be released at 9:15 a.m. ET. The Federal Reserve will release its latest Beige Book report at 2:00 p.m. ET. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 69 points to 16,274.00, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index futures rose 8.30 points to 1,847.90. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index gained 18.50 points to 3,509.75.

European markets were higher today, with the Spanish Ibex Index surging 1.11%, London's FTSE 100 index gaining 0.33% and STOXX Europe 600 Index jumping 0.74%. German DAX 30 index climbed 0.79% and French CAC 40 Index rose 0.85%. Italy's trade surplus widened to EUR2.6 billion ($3.59 billion) in February, from EUR1.0 billion in the year-ago month. UK's unemployment declined to 6.9% in the three months to February. The European Union's consumer prices rose 0.9% in March from February. Asian markets ended mostly higher today. Japan's Nikkei Stock Average surged 3.01%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 0.11%, China's Shanghai Composite gained 0.17% and India's BSE Index dropped 0.92%.

Analysts at Imperial Capital upgraded Goodrich Petroleum

from “in-line” to “outperform.” The target price for Goodrich Petroleum has been raised from $13 to $33. Goodrich Petroleum's shares closed at $24.34 yesterday.