Wall Street
Minorities are seriously underrepresented in Wall Street management. Reuters

Stock futures on Friday pointed to a positive open after a brief pause in the rally following the Federal Reserve’s announcement earlier this week that it would begin winding down its asset-purchase program.

“The announcement has not proved so far to be the turning point for markets that some have suggested. On the contrary, the stock market has rallied,” a note from Capital Economics said, adding that the market’s positive reaction is unsurprising considering “the still benign outlook for US monetary policy over the next couple of years.”

Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, or DJIA, were up 0.04 percent and futures on the S&P 500 were up 0.14 percent while those on the Nasdaq 100 were up 0.17 percent.

“The S&P 500 is more likely to inch up than collapse. Our current forecast is that the index will rise to just 1,850 by the end of 2015 – a little higher than it is today,” the Capital Economics note said.

The final reading of the third quarter GDP number is due at 8:30 a.m. EST, and the consensus is for a 3.6 percent growth over the previous quarter, according to a Wall Street Journal estimate.

In Europe, markets were trading up despite Standard & Poor’s taking away the European Union’s triple-A credit rating. The Stoxx Europe 600 index was trading up 0.3 percent while the FTSE 100 was up 0.09 percent. Germany’s DAX-30 was up 0.55 percent while France's CAC-40 was up 0.18 percent.

In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei was up 0.07 percent and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 climbed 1.21 percent. The Shanghai Composite index dropped 2.02 percent while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 0.34 percent. South Korea’s KOSPI Composite index was up 0.39 percent while India’s BSE Sensex rallied to end the day up 1.79 percent.

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