Stock Futures Rally on Eurozone Deal

Stock index futures rose sharply on Thursday after European leaders agreed to boost the region's bailout fund and struck a deal with private banks and insurers to accept 50 percent losses on Greek bonds.

* Reached after more than eight hours of hard-nosed talks between bankers, heads of state and the International Monetary Fund, the agreement also foresees a recapitalization of hard-hit European banks and a leveraging of the bloc's rescue fund to give it firepower of 1.0 trillion euros ($1.4 trillion).

* S&P 500 futures rose 26 points and were far above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures soared 203 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures jumped 48.5 points.

* European shares advanced 3.3 percent to hit a 12-week high after the Europe deal, led by banking shares.

* Also on investors' agenda will be third-quarter U.S. gross domestic product, coming at 8:30 a.m. EDT. A Reuters survey of economists forecast a 2.5 percent annual pace of growth, compared with a 1.3 percent annual rate in the second quarter.

* Other macroeconomic data Thursday includes weekly jobless claims and the Chicago Fed Midwest Manufacturing Index for September also at 8:30 a.m. EDT. A Reuters survey predicted 400,000 initial jobless claims, down from 403,000 in the previous week.

* September U.S. pending home sales come at 10 a.m. EDT and are seen rising 0.1 percent from a fall of 1.2 percent in the previous reading.

* In an early earnings report, Dow Chemical Co narrowly missed quarterly profit expectations as cost increases dented demand in Europe and North America.

* Exxon Mobil Corp was to report earnings later in the day.

* In corporate news, Research in Motion Ltd has been sued by BlackBerry users in the United States and Canada for service outages that hit devices earlier this month.

* American International Group Inc plans to sell about half its stake in AIA Group Ltd <1299.HK>, the Asian life insurer it took public last year, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources.

(Reporting by Angela Moon; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)