Stock Futures Rise Ahead of Bernanke, Apple Meeting

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Stock futures rise Wednesday as investors digested durable goods numbers, and awaited pending home sales data, the second day of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony before Congress and Apple's(AAPL) annual shareholders' meeting.

The Apple meeting is set to begin Wednesday at 12 p.m. EST. Tim Cook, Apple CEO, is likely to be asked what the iPhone maker plans to do with its massive cash hoard of more than $137 billion.

"We have some rumors about Apple and what they might do today at a meeting ... I'm going to focus on what we see in tech ... and if we really get a solid bounce and Apple stays above ... maybe there's some credence to the rumor," Matthew Cheslock, equity trader at Virtu Financial, told TheStreet late Tuesday, as the tech-heavy Nasdaq rebounded strongly along with Apple.

Apple shares were down incrementally in premarket trading Wednesday.

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 17 points, or 2.13 points below fair value, at 13,876. Futures for the S&P 500 were up 1.75 points, or 0.89 points below fair value, at 1494. Futures for the Nasdaq were up by 4.25 points, or 0.27 points below fair value, at 2712.

Major U.S. stock averages rebounded Tuesday from the prior session's swoon after a raft of upbeat economic data and earnings reports, and after Bernanke indicated continued support for monetary easing in his semi-annual testimony before Congress.

Bernanke said, though, that the Fed alone couldn't bear the entire burden of spurring the economic recovery, and urged lawmakers to find alternatives to the sequestration ahead of a March 1 deadline.

Bernanke gives his semi-annual testimony before the House Financial Services Committee in Washington starting at 10 a.m.. He spoke before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday.

The Census Bureau reported that durable goods orders fell 5.2% in January after rising 3.7% in December. Excluding transportation, orders rose 1.9% after a 1% increase the prior month. Economists were expecting durable goods orders to fall 3.5% in January and the number to rise 0.2% excluding the transportation component.