By Abhiram Nandakumar
REUTERS - U.S. stocks were set to open higher on Thursday, tracking a rise in crude oil prices, a day after the U.S. Federal Reserve gave little indication of slowing the pace of future rate hikes.
The Fed kept interest rates unchanged and said it was "closely monitoring" global economic and financial developments, while keeping an optimistic view of the U.S. economy.
Benchmark Brent crude was up more than 2 percent, after Russian officials decided to talk to Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries about cutting production to help prices.
U.S. stocks closed sharply lower on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 falling more than 1 percent, after the Fed's statement failed to impress some investors.
"The Fed meeting caused some kind of a knee-jerk reaction and the markets need a bit of time to digest what happened yesterday," said Khaldoon Ibrahim, chief executive of MarketsCompass.com, a trading advisory website.
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The central bank and investors will now keep a keen eye on economic data and assess corporate earnings reports to gauge the impact from the global turmoil.
"Earnings have been generally good, but the outlook for the second quarter is not good, and that is what is spooking people," said Phil Davis, chief executive of Philstockworld.com.
Data on Thursday showed durable goods orders fell 5.1 percent in December, widely missing expectations of a 0.6 percent decline, while jobless claims fell more than expected to 278,000 last week.
At 8:36 a.m. ET (1336 GMT), Dow e-minis were up 8 points, or 0.05 percent, with 68,461 contracts changing hands. S&P 500 e-minis were up 2.75 points, or 0.15 percent, with 358,880 contracts traded. Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 23.75 points, or 0.58 percent, on volume of 73,242 contracts.
Caterpillar was up 3.9 percent at $60.60, while Under Armour soared 13.7 percent to $78 after both companies reported better-than-expected profit.
Facebook surged 14 percent to $107.65 after the world's biggest social network reported a 52 percent jump in revenue. [nL3N15B5NT]
EBay sank 12.4 percent to $23.14 premarket after it forecast weaker-than-expected quarterly revenue and profit.
PayPal, which was spun-off from eBay last year, was up 6.7 percent at $33.70 after its revenue beat estimates.
Juniper Networks was down 9.6 percent at $24 and Qualcomm was off 2.8 percent at $46.20 after both companies issued grim forecasts, prompting a slew of rating downgrades.
Tech heavyweights Microsoft and Amazon are among companies due to report results after the close.
(Reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)