US Stock Futures Up Ahead Of Consumer Credit Report

Pre-open movers US stock futures traded higher in early pre-market trade. Data on consumer credit for February will be released at 3:00 p.m. ET. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 33.50 points to 17,838.50, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index futures surged 3.70 points to 2,076.95. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index rose 11.65 points to 4,353.90. A Peek Into Global Markets European markets were higher today, with the Spanish Ibex Index rising 0.81%, STOXX Europe 600 Index surging 1.30% and German DAX 30 index rising 0.95%. French CAC 40 Index climbed 1.28% and London's FTSE 100 Index rose 1.40%. In Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei Stock Average rose 1.25%, China's Shanghai Composite Index jumped 2.52% and India's BSE Sensex gained 0.04%. Broker Recommendation Analysts at Wells Fargo upgraded Carnival Corporation CCL from Market Perform to Outperform. Carnival shares fell 0.44% to close at $47.76 yesterday. Breaking news

• Oncolytics Biotech® Inc. ONCY today announced that it has submitted an application for Orphan Drug Designation to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for REOLYSIN® for the treatment of gastric cancer. To read the full news, click here.
• Cerulean Pharma Inc. CERU today announced the pricing of an underwritten public offering of 5,840,000 shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $6.00 per share, before underwriting discounts. To read the full news, click here.
• FedEx Corporation FDX and TNT Express N.V. TNTEY today announced that they have reached a conditional agreement on a recommended all-cash offer for all issued and outstanding ordinary shares, including shares represented by American Depositary Receipts of TNT Express for a cash offer price of €8.00 per share cum dividend except for the TNT Express final 2014 dividend of €0.08 in a transaction valuing TNT Express at an implied equity value of approximately €4.4 billion ($4.8 billion). To read the full news, click here.
• Accenture ACN and Alcatel-Lucent ALU have today announced a four-year agreement with Telefónica TEF to deploy Alcatel-Lucent's Motive Customer Experience Management software for Telefónica residential customers in European and Latin American countries. To read the full news, click here.