NYSE_Wall Street
Traders stand outside the New York Stock Exchange prior to the opening bell on Oct. 31, 2012. Reuters/Brendan McDermid

Following a record rally the day before Christmas that took the Dow Jones and S&P 500 indexes to unprecedented highs and the Nasdaq to a 13-year high, stocks look set to open Thursday on an upbeat note.

Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, or DJIA, were up 0.04 percent and futures on the S&P 500 were up 0.16 percent while those on the Nasdaq 100 were up 0.08 percent.

According to a study by Bespoke Investment Group cited by MarketWatch, the S&P 500 index has risen on the day after Christmas about 79 percent of the time since 1945. And, by this measure, Dec. 26 is the best day of the year to be in the stock market, according to the study.

On the data front, jobless claims for the week ended Dec. 21 are scheduled to be released at 8:30 a.m. EST and a Wall Street Journal consensus estimate pegs the number at 340,000 compared to 379,000 recorded in the previous week.

In Asia, stocks had a mixed day. Japan’s Nikkei continued its rally to close the day up 1.03 percent while the Shanghai Composite index dropped 1.58 percent. South Korea’s KOSPI Composite index ended the day down 0.11 percent while India’s BSE Sensex rose 0.2 percent.

Markets across Europe, Australia and Hong Kong were closed.

Australia India Japan South Korea