Wall St set to open higher on China rate cut, ECB hopes
By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street was poised to open higher on Friday, setting major stock indexes up for a fifth week of gains, after China's central bank cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time in more than two years to boost its cooling economy. The People's Bank of China said it was cutting one-year benchmark lending rates by 40 basis points to 5.6 percent. It lowered one-year benchmark deposit rates by less - just 25 basis points. The changes take effect from Saturday. China's move came after European Central Bank head Mario Draghi said "excessively low" inflation had to be raised quickly by whatever means necessary, kindling expectations the ECB will move to stimulate the euro zone economy. "To the extent that you got dueling positive monetary policy statements in two places that we were concerned about a slowdown in economic growth, that’s very good," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities in New York. "China’s is more substantive because they are actually doing something," he said. "Draghi is talking about the potential, which is still good but not the same." Equity markets have expected other major central banks to step up their accommodative policies as the U.S. Federal Reserve scales down its stimulus program, which has been a pillar of a years-long bull market on Wall Street. S&P 500 e-mini futures rose 17 points and fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract, indicated a higher open. Dow Jones industrial average e-mini futures rose 144 points and Nasdaq 100 e-mini futures added 33 points. Shares of miners, a proxy for an expected pickup in Chinese economic activity, led gains in Europe, and U.S.-traded stocks of global metals companies were among the most heavily traded in premarket action. Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton rose more than 4 percent each while Vale added nearly 7 percent. The energy sector is also expected to rally as Brent crude prices rose nearly 2 percent to near $81 a barrel after China's rate move and on speculation that oil cartel OPEC could agree next week to reduce production. The Select Sector SPDR energy exchange-traded fund jumped 1.5 percent premarket. GameStop slid 9.3 percent in premarket a day after its quarterly revenue and profit came in well below analysts' estimates. Foot Locker added 2.8 percent in premarket after posting better-than-expected results. (Editing by Bernadette Baum)
