Wall Street was set for a lower open on Friday as talk of a Greece default gained pace but rumors of coordinated action by central banks prompted futures to cut losses.

S&P 500 futures were off about 20 points earlier but had briefly turned positive on talk of European Central Bank action in the currency market.

S&P 500 futures were down 4.4 points and below 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 dropped 39 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures took off 8 points.

Futures are rallying on speculation about possible coordinated action from central banks at 2 p.m. Action could well center around recent rumors of 100 bps cut in swap lines, said Cort Gwon, chief strategist at HudsonView Capital Management in New York.

On Thursday, the S&P lost 3.2 percent, while the Dow dropped 3.5 percent, and the Nasdaq slid 3.3 percent.

Wall Street's fear gauge, the CBOE Volatility Index <.VIX>, jumped 12 percent, giving the index its biggest two-day percentage spike in a month as investors protected themselves against future losses.

On the corporate front, investors watched shares of Hewlett-Packard Co after Meg Whitman, the former head of EBay Inc was named to run the computer and printer maker. The stock was down 2 percent to $22.35 in premarket trade.

(Reporting by Angela Moon; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Meg Whitman