Stock index futures rose on Friday with markets hopeful that debt-laden Italy will implement tough austerity measures crucial to avoid a euro zone meltdown.

Italian bond yields eased ahead of a vote by that country's Senate later in the day on a package of cuts that is expected to pass easily, as it should in the lower house on Saturday.

European shares bounced back, rising 0.8 percent on the developments.

Asian shares also rebounded. Japan's Nikkei share average rose 0.2 percent and MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan gained 1.3 percent, recouping some losses suffered in a sharp selloff in the previous session.

In Greece, the prime minister designate, Lucas Papademos, will name a new crisis cabinet to roll out austerity plans.

Here again today, there are some positive steps in terms of the reorganization of the Greek and Italian governments and there seems to be a slight tightening to the yields that had everyone worried, and that is the dominant news of the morning, said Rick Meckler, president of investment firm LibertyView Capital Management in New York.

It's a very repetitive process in the sense (that) where you are sitting behind a wall with cracks in it, and some days the cracks seem a little bit wider and have to be patched up -- and to the extent they are patched up the market seems to recover.

S&P 500 futures rose 10.2 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration of the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures climbed 78 points, while Nasdaq 100 futures gained 13.5 points.

Walt Disney Co advanced 4 percent to $36.02 after the media and entertainment group reported a 7 percent gain in revenues and a 30 percent jump in profit, trumping expectations.

Nvidia Corp's shares climbed 4.2 percent to $15.08 in premarket trade after the chipmaker posted quarterly results that beat estimates as it refocused on smartphones and tablets in a tepid personal computer market.

Caterpillar Inc will offer to buy China's ERA Mining Machinery in a deal that could be worth up to $885 million.

On the economic front, Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers preliminary November consumer sentiment index is due to be released at 9:55 a.m. EST (1455 GMT). A Thomson Reuters poll found a forecast for a reading of 61.5 compared with 60.9 in the final October release.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

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