U.S. Stock-Index Futures Gain Before Housing Data, Fed

U.S. stock futures rose, indicating the Standard & Poor's 500 Index will gain for a second day, as investors awaited data that may show housing starts climbed and the start of a Federal Reserve policy meeting.

Walter Energy Corp. advanced 4.3 percent in New York pre-market trading York as Morgan Stanley said the coal miner's shares may triple.

Futures on the S&P 500 (SPX) expiring in September increased 0.2 percent to 1,637.5 at 6:30 a.m. in New York. The index climbed 0.8 percent yesterday as data showed manufacturers in the New York area felt more optimistic in June and as confidence among U.S. homebuilders rose. Contracts on the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 32 points, or 0.2 percent, to 15,153 today.

"U.S. companies are doing really quite well," James McCaughan, chief executive officer of Principal Global Investors LLC, told Mark Barton on Bloomberg Television. "There's low energy costs, high productivity, an improving housing market. All that means that U.S. companies, particularly domestics, are doing pretty well. It's easy to see a situation for the rest of the year where U.S. equities continue to rise."

The Federal Open Market Committee begins a two-day policy meeting today, with Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke holding a press conference tomorrow. Bernanke suggested last month that the central bank could start to taper bond purchases if the economy improves in a "real and sustainable way."

'Quite Clear'

Bernanke has "actually been really quite clear the last two or three meetings," McCaughan said. "He's talked about tapering coming in on some modest employment improvement. He's talked about a 6.5 percent unemployment rate as being the time to normalize and stop the asset purchases."

A Commerce Department report at 8:30 a.m. in Washington may show housing starts rose in May. Builders broke ground on 950,000 houses at an annualized rate, up from April's 853,000 pace, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

Walter Energy, a U.S. miner of coal used in steelmaking, gained 4.3 percent to $12.20. Morgan Stanley said the stock may climb to around $35 even if the company increases its share count by a third. The company plunged 20 percent in the past two days as it canceled a plan to refinance $1.55 billion of loans.