Stock futures up ahead of key data, Ford shares jump

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures rose on Monday, signaling a rebound after the previous session's steep losses, ahead of data expected to show U.S. manufacturing grew for a third consecutive month in October.

Ford Motor Co shares rose 5.7 percent to $7.40 in premarket trading after the U.S. carmaker surprised Wall Street with a quarterly profit supported by cost cuts, improved credit results, and increased market share.

After weak U.S. consumer sentiment data released on Friday, investors were bracing for more U.S. macro data on Monday on construction spending, pending home sales as well as manufacturing data from the Institute of Supply Management, all due at 10 a.m. EST.

Crude futures rose nearly 1 percent, retracing some of the previous session's 3.6 percent drop, as HSBC's China Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) rose to an 18-month high and helped to allay fears about the pace of the rebound in global energy demand.

"We did have some good news in out of China. If we get further news here from the ISM index, that would help the market and change some of the negative aspects we've had during the last days," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Avalon Partners in New York.

The banking sector will be in the spotlight after CIT Group Inc , a U.S. lender to hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses, filed for bankruptcy on Sunday.

Cardillo said the bankruptcy filing by CIT, a lender with so many clients, was definitely a negative, but had already been priced into the market's decline on Friday.

S&P 500 futures rose 5.7 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures gained 47 points and Nasdaq 100 futures added 4.25 points.

Comcast Corp and General Electric Co are closer to a deal to give Comcast a 51 percent stake in NBC Universal and a formal announcement may be made in the coming week, the New York Times said, citing people briefed on the talks.

Denbury Resources Inc has agreed to buy Encore Acquisition Co for $3.2 billion to create one of North America's largest oil production and exploration companies.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc is in talks to buy millions of dollars of tax credits from Fannie Mae , but the U.S. Treasury could block the deal, on concerns it would help Goldman reduce its tax bill, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The Dow industrials slid on Friday 249.85 points, or 2.51 percent, to end at 9,712.73 after its worst slide since July on concerns that the economic recovery won't be robust enough to sustain the seven-month stock rally, while financials sank on renewed worries about Citigroup Inc's balance sheet.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.SPX> tumbled 29.92 points, or 2.81 percent, to 1,036.19. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> dropped 52.44 points, or 2.50 percent, to close at 2,045.11.

(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

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