U.S. Stock Futures Advance on German Court Decision

U.S. stock futures advanced, indicating that the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will rise for a second day, after Germany’s highest constitutional court allowed the country to ratify the euro area’s permanent bailout fund.
Facebook Inc. (FB) climbed 3.1 percent in early New York trading after the company said late yesterday that it will focus on increasing revenue from mobile services. Apple Inc. (AAPL) gained 0.8 percent before the company unveils its redesigned iPhone 5 later today in San Francisco.
S&P 500 futures expiring this month added 0.5 percent to 1,437.7 at 7:34 a.m. in New York. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures gained 53 points, or 0.4 percent, to 13,346 today.
“The outcome -- approval with conditions attached -- was anticipated,” said Manish Singh, the head of investment at Crossbridge Capital in London, which has more than $2 billion under management. “If you account for the fact that the majority of Germans wanted the Constitutional Court to reject the ESM, it does set the narrative that government efforts to bail out sovereigns will be challenged.”
Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court dismissed motions that sought to stop the government from contributing to the rescue facility known as the European Stability Mechanism. The judges ruled that parliament must approve any increase of the country’s 190 billion euros ($245 billion) of liabilities.
Fed Meeting
The Federal Reserve will probably announce a third round of bond purchases tomorrow, according to almost two-thirds of economists in a Bloomberg survey. The central bank will also commit to hold interest rates close to zero into 2015.
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee will opt for further quantitative easing to support an economy that grew at less than 2 percent in the second quarter, the survey showed. The unemployment rate has remained above 8 percent for 43 consecutive months.
Facebook Inc., the world’s largest social-networking website, rose 3.1 percent to $20.03 after Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said that the company should generate more revenue from mobile devices than from desktop computers.
“Now we are a mobile company,” Zuckerberg said in an on- stage interview at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco yesterday, his first since Facebook’s initial public offering. “Over the next three to five years, I think the biggest question that is on everyone’s mind, that will determine our performance over that period, is really how well we do with mobile.”
Apple added 0.8 percent to $666.01 in New York trading. The world’s most valuable company has scheduled a product event for 10 a.m. in San Francisco today, where analysts expect it to unveil a redesigned iPhone 5.
Paychex Inc. (PAYX) may move after Jefferies Group Inc. cut the provider of payroll processing to underperform from hold, meaning that investors should sell the shares.