US pre-open: Futures higher despite hawkish comments from Fed's Bullard

Wall Street futures were in the green ahead of the bell on Friday as market participants digested comments from the Federal Reserve's James Bullard.

As of 1240 GMT, Dow Jones futures were up 0.52%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.75% and 0.95% firmer, respectively.

The Dow closed 7.51 points lower on Thursday after St Louis Fed president James Bullard delivered a hawkish speech, stating that the central bank's interest rate target would need to be raised further to bring inflation down.

Bullard's speech was accompanied by a chart, which apparently suggested he saw rates in the 5-7% range as being appropriate going forward - higher than the market has priced in.

As far as Friday goes, the Conference Board's October leading index will be in focus at 1500 GMT, while traders will also thumb over last month's existing home sales data at the same time.

Also likely to draw an amount of attention, particularly following Bullard's comments on Thursday, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston president Susan Collins will deliver a speech at 1340 GMT.

In the corporate space, Foot Locker posted a third-quarter net income of $96.0m, down from $158.0m a year ago, while total sales decreased by 0.7% to $2.17bn.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com