Stock Futures Point Higher, P&G Pops

On Thursday, the S&P 500 managed to breach the psychologically significant 1500 mark a number of times during the day. Doreen Mogavero, founder of Mogavero Lee & Co., said that "1500 was the target and traders wanted to see if we could get there this year and we'd gotten there earlier in the year. It's crossed it several times today I think but I don't think you can question the momentum of this market. Apple earnings were not what they were expected to be; that stock took a hard hit yesterday but the market doesn't seem to be too worried about it."

Mogavero said that there have been two camps, both very polarized, on theories of where the market is headed from current levels. Some traders have been feeling that the market is poised to really take off for a "huge new secular bull market" and others feel that a pullback is due.

Mogavero told TheStreet Thursday evening that she was expecting a little bit of consolidation before probably a move higher barring any bad news out of Europe or China. The U.S. macro picture seemed "pretty stable," she said.

Apple (AAPL) shares were back in positive territory in premarket trading, up 0.67%, after their steep decline the prior session on a disappointing quarterly announcement.

At 10 a.m. EST, the Census Bureau is expected by economists, on average, to report that new-home sales increased to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 385,000 in December from 377,000.

"With homebuilders' sales expectations strong, we think that new home sales rose further last month," said Paul Diggle, an economist at Capital Economics.

The European markets were higher on the LTRO announcement and encouraging German Ifo data. The DAX in Frankfurt was rising 1.29% while trading action was more subdued in London, with the FTSE up 0.17% after weaker-than-expected data on UK fourth-quarter GDP.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed down by 0.08% on some profit taking and the Nikkei in Japan advanced 2.88% on an easing yen currency.

Gold for February delivery was falling $5.10 at $1,664.80 an ounce at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, while March crude oil futures were rising 37 cents at $96.32 a barrel.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury was slumping by 17/32, raising the yield to 1.917%. The dollar was dipping by 0.19%, according to the U.S. dollar index.