Wall Street set to rise on strong retailer earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were set to rise at the open on Wednesday buoyed by earnings reports from consumer bellwethers like Target while gains in commodities and the euro indicated more willingness to add to risky assets.

Earnings beats and strong forecasts from retailers Target and Staples shifted the focus away from Europe's debt crisis, which has driven U.S. trading of late.

"We've seen some household names put out better earnings numbers this morning, and that's extremely constructive," said Art Hogan, managing director of Lazard Capital Markets in New York.

S&P 500 futures rose 3.8 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration of the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures gained 21 points, while Nasdaq 100 futures dipped 2.5 points.

The FTSEurofirst 300 <.FTEU3> index of leading European shares shook off earlier losses to trade near break even, even as financial shares <.SX7P> fell after German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy made clear that joint euro zone bond issuance was not on their agenda.

"There was a consensus agreement that we'd like to move closer to a euro bond," said Lazard's Hogan. "But falling short of that you've got a very strong signal from Germany that they're going to do whatever it takes, and that's bleeding into the strength of the euro and as that happens we see a commodities rally."

The euro rose 0.5 percent against the U.S. dollar, while U.S. crude futures advanced 2 percent. Gold held steady near a record high.

Weighing on Nasdaq futures, Dell Inc shares fell 7.2 percent to $14.66 in premarket trading a day after the computer company's quarterly revenues came in below estimates and it said current-quarter sales would be flat.

Target Corp posted higher quarterly profit early Wednesday as back-to-school sales perked up toward the end of the quarter. Its shares were up 5.9 percent to $52.30 premarket.

Staples Inc jumped more than 9 percent to $15.55 premarket after the office supply retailer raised its profit outlook and posted better-than-expected earnings.

Futures didn't budge after a report showed U.S. core producer prices rose in July at their fastest pace in six months in July.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

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