March 8 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock-index futures rose as investors speculated companies' earnings and takeovers will help shares recoup losses from a global sell-off.

``All conditions are in place for a rebound in stocks as earnings are still good and mergers and acquisitions keep supporting markets,'' said Andrea Bailo, who helps manage $330 million at Banca MB SpA in Milan.

Citigroup Inc., the world's biggest financial firm by market value, climbed in Europe as the company pursues its third bid in five months for an Asian financial firm.

Monster Worldwide Inc. gained after Citigroup advised investors to buy stock of the Web's largest job-search engine. Ford Motor Co. advanced as Credit Suisse Group said it expected the loss at the second-largest U.S. automaker to narrow. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, increased before releasing same-store sales for February.

Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures expiring in March added 10.50 to 1403.70 as of 12:24 p.m. in London. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures advanced 75 to 12,276. Nasdaq-100 Index futures climbed 18.50 to 1756.

U.S. stocks fell yesterday after D.R. Horton Inc., the nation's second-largest homebuilder, said a yearlong housing slump is unlikely to end in 2007 and the Federal Reserve cited slowing growth in several local economies.

A Bloomberg survey released today shows economists, looking beyond the latest weakness in housing, investment and stock markets, expect the U.S. economy to strengthen this year. A government report today on jobs may lend support to that forecast.

`Fundamental Picture'

Asian stocks advanced today, led by Japanese exporters after the yen weakened, making the nation's products cheaper overseas. European stocks rallied for a third day.

``The positive fundamental picture for stocks hasn't changed,'' said Oliver Hagen, who manages $139 million in U.S. stocks at LGT Capital Management in Bendern, Liechtenstein. ``We would use any weakness to buy. The recent correction doesn't reverse the stable up trend. The mental frame of the bull market is still in place and the economy is still solid.''

The S&P 500 has fallen 4.6 percent since Feb. 20 when it reached a six-year high, boosted by mergers and acquisitions.

The U.S. economy, the world's largest, may expand at a 2.4 percent annual rate this quarter, and accelerate to 3 percent by year's end, according to the median estimate of 75 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News from March 1 to March 7. The economy grew at a 2.2 percent pace in the last three months of 2006.

Separately, a U.S. Labor Department report on jobless claims may show the number of Americans applying for state jobless benefits dropped last week, one week after total unemployment rolls reached a 14-month high.

Citigroup

Citigroup gained 36 cents to $50.38 in Frankfurt. The biggest U.S. bank is ``very aggressively'' talking with Bank of Overseas Chinese over the purchase of a stake, an official at the Taiwanese bank said.

Citigroup may buy all of Overseas Chinese for NT$14 billion ($425 million), the Wall Street Journal reported today, citing a person familiar with the talks. Overseas Chinese Executive Vice President Weng Chien said no deal has been reached. Citigroup's Hong Kong-based spokesman Richard Tesvich declined to comment.

This week the New York-based firm bid $10.8 billion for Nikko Cordial Corp., Japan's third-biggest brokerage, and in November it led a $3.1 billion acquisition of Guangdong Development Bank.

Monster, Ford

Monster Worldwide gained $1.03 to $48.58 in Frankfurt. Citigroup raised its recommendation for the stock to ``buy'' from ``hold'' and increased its price target by 20 percent to $60.

``Monster's very strong growth in Europe, its promising Internet advertising segment, and still very material business- model leverage make this a core internet holding to be added to at these risk-reward levels,'' analysts including Mark Mahaney wrote in a report published today.

Ford gained 21 cents to $7.83 in Germany. Credit Suisse raised its recommendation on the stock to ``neutral'' from ``underperform.''

``We think Ford may post a slightly better-than-expected first-quarter loss in North America of $1.4 billion to $1.5 billion, versus our initial forecast of a $1.7 billion loss,'' analysts including Christopher Ceraso and Joe Durham wrote in a note to investors.

Wal-Mart

Stocks on the S&P 500 index trade at average 17 times current earnings. That is below the average price-earnings ratio of 21 since the current bull market began in March 2003.

``The macro picture is one of below-trend growth, but I've not seen anything that would make me feel like the economy is going off a cliff,'' said John Praveen, chief investment strategist at Prudential International Investments Advisers LLC in Newark, New Jersey, a unit of Prudential Financial Inc., which oversees $616 billion.

Wal-Mart added 37 cent to $48.30 in Germany. The company has forecast a sales gain of 1 percent to 2 percent for February in U.S. stores open at least 12 months.

February same-store sales at Target Corp., the second- largest U.S. discount chain, probably rose as much as 6 percent, the Minneapolis-based company said Feb. 19. Target shares declined 61 cents to $59.99 in Frankfurt.

Costco Wholesale Corp. dropped 67 cents to $55.45 in Germany. The largest U.S. warehouse club said second-quarter net income declined on stock-option related expenses.

Apple

Apple Inc. gained 85 cents to $88.67 in Frankfurt. The maker of the iPod music players and Macintosh personal computers may introduce a new laptop this year that will save data on flash memory chips instead of a hard drive, American Technology Research said.

``Our sources indicate that Apple would like to introduce the product in the second half to further capitalize on its strong MacBook growth,'' Shaw Wu, a San Francisco-based analyst at American Technology Research, wrote in a report dated March 7.

TiVo Inc. may be active. The maker of digital video recorders said yesterday its fourth-quarter loss narrowed to 19 cents a share from 25 cents a year earlier as the company won new subscribers. Service and technology sales of $57.4 million beat the $56.5 million average analyst estimate of in a Bloomberg survey.

Applied Materials Inc. gained 42 cents to $18.2 in Frankfurt after Morgan Stanley raised its recommendation for shares of the world's biggest maker of semiconductor-production equipment to ``overweight'' from ``equal-weight.''

KLA-Tencor

KLA-Tencor Corp. advanced 26 cents to $51.31 in Germany. Morgan Stanley also increased its recommendation for shares of the No. 2 U.S. semiconductor-production equipment maker to ``overweight'' from ``equal-weight.''

The stocks ``will soon reflect a bottoming of manufacturing utilizations in the first half of 2007, an inflection in capital equipment orders in the second half, and robust capital spending in 2008,'' analysts including Harlan Sur wrote in a report published today.

The S&P 500 declined 3.44, or 0.3 percent, to 1391.97 yesterday. The Dow average decreased 15.14, or 0.1 percent, to 12,192.45. The Nasdaq slipped 10.50, or 0.4 percent, to 2374.64.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andreas Hippin in Frankfurt at ahippin@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 8, 2007 07:36 EST