U.S.

stock futures rose after government reports showed the number of Americans
receiving unemployment benefits fell last week while worker productivity increased.

Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. climbed at least 0.9 percent after the
Labor Department’s report signaled the most acute phase of job losses may be over.
Exxon Mobil Corp. and Schlumberger Ltd. climbed more than 0.6 percent, leading an
advance in energy producers, as oil jumped 2.5 percent on a prediction from Goldman
Sachs Group Inc. that crude may reach $85 a barrel by the end of the year.

Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index expiring this month added 0.4 percent to
935.20 at 8:52 a.m. in New York. The benchmark measure for U.S. equities has rallied 38
percent from a 12-year low on March 9 on optimism the global recession is slowing. Dow
Jones Industrial Average futures rose 0.4 percent to 8,707, while Nasdaq-100 Index
futures increased 0.2 percent to 1,479.75.

“At the moment you have lead indicators picking up and that is enough to get the markets
rallying,” said Trevor Greetham, head of asset allocation at Fidelity International Ltd.,
which had $141 billion in assets under management at the end of March. “For that to be
sustainable you do need to see a follow-through to an above-trend rate of growth.”
London-based Greetham moved to “overweight” equities “very recently” in his multi-
asset portfolios, he told Bloomberg Television.

S&P 500’s Rebound

The S&P 500’s rebound since March 9 also comes as the biggest U.S. banks said they
were profitable last quarter, President Barack Obama outlined a $787 billion plan to
revive the economy and the Treasury unveiled plans to finance as much as $1 trillion in
purchases of lenders’ troubled assets.

Initial jobless claims fell by 4,000 to 621,000 in the week ended May 30, in line with
forecasts, from a revised 625,000 the prior week, the government said. The number of
people collecting unemployment insurance fell for the first time in almost five months,
breaking a string of 17 consecutive records.

U.S. worker productivity rose more in the first quarter than previously estimated as the
worst recession in at least half a century prompted companies to cut costs by extracting
more output from remaining employees.

Productivity, a measure of worker output per hour, climbed at a 1.6 percent annual rate,
more than forecast and double the 0.8 percent gain estimated last month, revised figures
from the Labor Department showed today. Labor costs increased 3 percent after climbing
5.1 percent at the end of 2008.

About two-thirds of companies in the S&P 500 that have published earnings since April 7
beat analysts’ projections, Bloomberg data show. Profits are expected to fall 16 percent
this year before rebounding 25 percent in 2010, according to estimates compiled by
Bloomberg.

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