ECONOMY & MARKETS

Stock index futures pointed to a steady-to-lower open on Wall Street on Thursday, with futures for the S&P 500 flat, Dow Jones futures down 0.04 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.15 percent at 1055 GMT.

Spain and France struggled with government bond auctions on Thursday, throwing into sharp relief the threat of larger euro zone economies succumbing to the debt crisis that began in Greece and is already lapping at Italy's shores.

World stocks hit a one-week low on Thursday and Bunds rose as Spain paid more than at any time since 1997 to sell ten-year debt, sparking fears it may join other euro zone peripheral states in being unable to finance itself.

The top aftermarket NYSE gainers Wednesday were: Qihoo 360 Technology, Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes, Exterran Holdings, Maidenform Brands, Kodiak Oil & Gas Corp, Wabco Holdings, Trinity Industries, HollyFrontier Corp, Berry Petroleum and Oasis Petroleum.

France-based Airbus AS has secured a total of 211 orders at the 12th Dubai Airshow worth $20.5 billion. The order involves 135 firm orders worth $13.7 billion (130 A320neo and five A380s) and 76 memorandum of understanding (MoU) worth $6.8 billion.

The companies that are expected to see active trade on Thursday are: GameStop Corp, Applied Materials, GAP Inc, NetApp, Salesforce.com, Ross Stores, Sears Holdings, J M Smucker, Helmerich & Payne and Intuit Inc.

Crude oil prices slightly eased in Asian trading Thursday, after surging to a five-month high of $102.59 a barrel in Wednesday's North American session.

Asian shares wobbled Thursday as doubts deepened about Europe's ability to stop its sovereign debt crisis from spinning out of control, with Germany and France split over the European Central Bank's bond buying role.

The rupee was largely steady on Thursday as corporate dollar sales helped offset the initial fall in the local unit due to weak start to domestic shares.

Several factors are at work in oil's latest push back above the psychologically-significant $100 per barrel level -- a price that U.S. motorists wince at.

As equity investors play the ups and down of the stock market, fixed income money managers that provide day-to-day financing to the banks, investors in medium-term bonds and the peer banks themselves are scrambling for cover. The result: a dollar financing crunch that could deeply affect the banks and how they do business.

Cameroon's state oil company has increased its 2011 oil production forecast to 65,000 barrels per day from 55,000 bpd, an official told Reuters late on Tuesday.

Standard Bank Group expects its clients to issue corporate bonds in excess of 10 billion rand over the next four months and is in talks with four offshore companies interested in inward listings in South Africa.

South African stocks ended flat on Wednesday with the weak rand supporting exporters and platinum miners such as Northam, which investors were starting to view as oversold.

South Africa's rand reversed its earlier losses against the dollar on Wednesday and government bond yields pulled back from the previous day's multi-week highs as local assets took a breather from a hammering brought on by global risk aversion.

Ghana will seek to boost revenues from its mining industry next year by hiking taxes, according to a text of the 2012 budget delivered to parliament on Wednesday.

Canadian stocks looked set to open lower on Wednesday along with commodities on investor fear of contagion from the weakest debt-ridden euro zone economies such as Greece into bigger ones such as Italy, Spain and even France.

Canadian private equity deals tumbled in the third quarter from the year-ago period, but were still far above crisis levels of just two years ago, according to an industry report on Wednesday.

Volatility in government bond markets is likely to continue unless European countries take steps to shield their financial systems, Canada's finance minister said as he expressed frustration with Europe's two-year old debt crisis.

The Canadian dollar slipped for the third day against the U.S. currency on Wednesday amid signs that Europe's debt crisis was spreading.

Applications for U.S. home mortgages dropped last week, erasing the gains of the week before as demand for refinancing evaporated, an industry group said on Wednesday.

Pressure eased on Europe's government debt market Wednesday, with Italian borrowing costs back below the 7 percent level viewed as unsustainable after the European Central Bank was seen buying up bonds.

Stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street Wednesday, with futures for the S&P 500 up 0.4 percent, Dow Jones futures up 0.3 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.4 percent at 1007 GMT.

Asian stock markets ended lower on Wednesday, as concerns about Europe’s debt crisis offset better-than-expected reports on U.S. economy Tuesday.

The top aftermarket NYSE gainers Tuesday were: Hillenbrand, Stepan, Hewlett-Packard, Hecla Mining, Williams Companies, Edwards Lifesciences, Omega Healthcare Investors, Dean Foods, General Motors and Beazer Homes USA.

The top after market NYSE Losers on Tuesday were: Och-Ziff Capital Management, GMAC LLC, Symetra Financial, Cenveo, LSI Logic, McGraw-Hill Companies, Agilent Technologies, Dycom Industries, HyperDynamics and IDT Corp.

Liquor baron Vijay Mallya, who is known as King of the Good Times, is in the news for his debt-strapped Kingfisher Airlines. Some alleged that his lavish and flamboyant lifestyle is responsible for the trouble.

Foreign direct investment into China climbed nearly 16 percent in the first 10 months of 2011 from a year earlier as foreign investors continued to flock to the world's fastest-growing major economy despite the global economic malaise.

The companies that are expected to see active trade on Wednesday are: Applied Materials, Dell, NetApp, Target Corp, Agilent Technologies, Abercrombie & Fitch, Limited Brands and Tyco International Ltd.