US Stock Futures Up; RIM Shares Drop In Pre-Market

US stock futures are higher this morning. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 48 points to 11,870.00 and futures on the S&P 500 stock index rose 6.70 points to 1,218.40. Nasdaq 100 futures surged 9.50 points to 2,232.75. US stocks closed higher on Thursday, with the Dow Jones industrial average gaining 0.38% to 11,868.81, the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index surging 0.32% to 1,215.75 and the NASDAQ composite index rising 0.07% to 2,541.01. The consumer-price index for November will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET. Shares of Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:

) dipped about 9% in pre-market trading after the company reported a sharp decline in its FQ3 earnings, and issued a downbeat view for the current period. Darden Restaurants Inc (NYSE:

) is projected to report its FQ2 earnings at $0.42 per share on sales of $1.83 billion. Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:

) reported a 35% decline in its Q4 earnings. Shares of Zynga Inc will begin trading on Friday. Zynga priced its initial public offering at $10 per share. Fitch Ratings cut the long-term issuer default ratings and viability ratings of Barclays PLC (NYSE:

), Bank of America Corp (NYSE:

), Credit Suisse AG (NYSE:

), Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE:

), BNP Paribas (OTC:

) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:

). Fitch also lowered the viability ratings of Morgan Stanley (NYSE:

) and Societe Generale (OTC:

). Asian markets ended mostly higher, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average surging 0.2446%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 moving up 0.50% and China's Shanghai Composite gaining 2.02%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 1.4343% and India's Sensex dipped 2.18%. European markets were mostly higher today. The STOXX Europe 600 Index has gained 0.13%, London's FTSE 100 Index moved up 0.49%, German DAX 30 index rose 0.07% and France CAC 40 index dropped 0.25%.