Wall Street futures point to higher start

Dow Jones futures rose 0.7 percent by 4:35 a.m. EDT, S&P futures gained 0.9 percent and Nasdaq futures ticked up 0.6 percent, pointing to a higher start for Wall Street's main stock market indexes on Thursday.

The tone was set by Alcoa (AA.N), whose shares rose 6.8 percent after Wednesday's closing bell on the back of the aluminum group's second-quarter earnings which beat market consensus, sending the stock up 6.5 percent in Frankfurt (ALU.F).

Also after the bell, NetApp (NTAP.O) rose 5 percent after the data storage equipment maker said it would not match EMC Corp's (EMC.N) $2.4 billion offer for Data Domain Inc (DDUP.O), while Kennametal Inc (KMT.N) fell 4.5 percent after the industrial tool maker said it would offer 6.5 million shares of common stock.

Oil major Chevron (CVX.N) is the only S&P 500 company reporting on Thursday.

In U.S. economic data, weekly jobless claims are due at 8:30 a.m. EDT and May wholesale inventories at 10 a.m. EDT.