Stock Futures: Nov. 4

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Stock futures pointed to a much stronger open Thursday, the morning after the Federal Reserve said it would inject $600 billion into the U.S. economy in another round of quantitative easing to bolster the recovery. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up by 59 points, or 70 points above fair value, at 11,236. Futures for the S&P 500 were 7 points higher, or 10 points above fair value, at 1204, and Nasdaq futures were up by 12 points, or 21 points above fair value. Stocks ended Wednesday's session with strong gains on the Fed's announcement that it will buy $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of second quarter of 2011 to lower long-term interest rates and help support the economy. Global markets also gained on the news. On Thursday, Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 1.6%, and Japan's Nikkei soared by 2.2%. The FTSE in London increased 1.8%, and the DAX in Frankfurt added 1.6%. Overseas, both the Bank of England and the European Central Bank are meeting Thursday morning to discuss monetary policies. At 8:30 a.m. ET, the Labor Department is expected to announce that initial weekly jobless claims rose to 445,000 in the week ended Oct. 30, according to Briefing.com. That level compares with previous claims of 434,000. The market will be paying particularly close attention to jobless benefits ahead of Friday's October employment report. Kraft Foods KFT, Sotheby's BID and Starbucks SBUX are among some of the companies reporting after the closing bell. According to Briefing.com, analysts are anticipating per-share earnings of 46 cents, 42 cents and 32 cents, respectively. To read the rest, head over to TheStreet.com