U.S. stock futures were positive before the open after encouraging global economic reports. Asian and European markets pushed higher after a report showed China’s economy has not been slowed by the European debt crisis. China said exports rose 48.5% in May, while imports jumped 48.3%. The European Union is China’s largest trading partner. Separately, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank held key interest rates at record lows.
On the domestic front, initial jobless claims mildly disappointed again, falling by only 3,000 to 456,000. But there is improvement on the continuing claims side, which fell by 255,000 to 4.462 million. While the drop in continuing claims can be interpreted as a positive, analysts generally agree that initial claims need to fall below the 400,000 to show private employers are consistently adding new workers. A separate report showed that weaker exports led to a widening of the trade deficit in April.
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