17 February 2012 at 13:59 GMT
Stocks are rallying on no news; UK retail sales surprise
Stoxx 50 is up 1.4 percent and S&P 500 Index futures are up 0.2 percent ahead of the open as no bad news out of Greece is considered to be good news. Based on today's trading investors seem to be positioning for a deal on Greece which would lift uncertainty in the short term. The two best performers in the Stoxx 50 index are Banco Santander (+2.5%) and BNP Paribas (+3.4%).
In the UK, retail sales for January came out at 1.2 percent MoM beating estimates of minus 0.3 percent which could be a sign that the UK economy is weathering the storm in Europe.
Later, US leading indicators for January are expected (15:00 GMT) to print 0.5 percent MoM compared to 0.4 percent in December signalling that the US economy contiunes to expand.