Stocks Futures Inch Up Ahead of Earnings From Moderna, ViacomCBS

A strong earnings season so far has shown strong demand for companies’ products and services, curtailing worries that higher prices could reduce Americans’ spending. 

Companies including Moderna, ViacomCBS and Kellogg are set to report quarterly results before the opening bell. Airbnb, Square, Uber Technologies and Peloton Interactive are slated to post earnings after markets close. 

Retail trader favorite

Bed Bath & Beyond

saw shares add 2.9% in premarket trading, building on Wednesday’s jump as individual investors’ appetite for risk taking grows. Shares of Express and

Naked Brand Group,

stocks that benefited earlier this year from a surge in individual investing, each rose less than 2% premarket. 

Even with the reduction in the Fed’s pandemic-driven stimulus, investors say the bond-buying program and low interest rates will support stocks. Fed Chairman

Jerome Powell

played down the prospect of an imminent turn to raising interest rates Wednesday. 

“This liquidity being pumped into the market is the single most powerful force on earth,” said Hani Redha, a portfolio manager at PineBridge Investments. “And yes, yesterday we got an announcement that the force is going to get weaker but even then you still have this force that is lifting the market.”

In bond markets, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note ticked up to 1.579% Thursday from 1.577% Wednesday. Yields and bond prices move inversely. 

Overseas, the pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.5%. Société Générale shares rose 2.6% in Paris trading after the bank posted profit ahead of expectations and replaced its chief financial officer, as it prepares to launch a buyback program.

Commerzbank

shares added more than 6% in German trading after posting results that beat analysts’ estimates. 

Fresh figures on the number of Americans who applied for first-time unemployment benefits in the week ended Oct. 30 are due out at 8:30 a.m. ET. Claims have fallen over the past few weeks as the labor market has tightened. 

Investors are watching to see if the Bank of England nudges up interest rates when it releases its policy statement at 8 a.m. ET. Speculation over the possibility of its first rate increase in three years has intensified in recent weeks after Gov. Andrew Bailey warned on Oct. 17 that the central bank “will have to act” if surging prices for goods and energy push up Britons’ expectations of future inflation. 

In Asia, major indexes closed with gains. China’s Shanghai Composite and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng each added 0.8%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 climbed 0.9%. 

Write to Caitlin Ostroff at caitlin.ostroff@wsj.com