The New York Stock Exchange is set to continue its advance in early trading on Friday, buoyed by solid quarterly results while awaiting the University of Michigan's index of US consumer confidence.

Half an hour before the opening, futures contracts on the main New York indices were up between 0.5% and 0.7%, pointing to an opening in the green.

Among the companies to have published their accounts in the morning, insurer Travelers - one of the Dow Jones constituents - climbed 5% in pre-market trading after posting record fourth-quarter profits.

The oil and gas group SLB (+1.4% in pre-opening trading) also reported better-than-expected results and raised its dividend, mainly on the back of record business in the Middle East.

While the US earnings season has so far got off to a gentle start, next week will see an increasing number of announcements from leading groups such as Netflix, Tesla, J&J and Intel.

Despite the current uncertainty surrounding expectations of an easing of the Fed's monetary policy, Wall Street rallied yesterday on the back of a strong performance by semiconductors.

For the week as a whole, the Dow Jones is currently down by around 1%, while the Nasdaq is up by just over 0.5%.

Following the solid indicators released in recent days, investors will be paying particular attention to the day's statistics, in the hope that they will not be robust enough to rule out a rapid rate cut.

The first estimate of the University of Michigan's consumer confidence index, a closely watched barometer of household sentiment, will be published in the morning, and analysts are expecting it to rise slightly due to the recent fall in gasoline prices.

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