A surprise rise in durable goods orders gave US stock futures a boost on Tuesday, with Wall Street benchmarks expected to play catch-up after the Memorial Day holiday on Monday.

Futures were showing gains of around 0.4% across the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq and S&P 500 as of 09:00 in New York.

Markets were set to track gains made in Europe the previous session as investors reacted favourably to a wave of European Parliament election results from across the continent.

Orders for durable goods unexpectedly increased by 0.8% in April, the third straight monthly gain following a 3.6% rise the month before. Analysts had expected orders to fall by 0.7% on average.

In other economic data, the S&P/Case-Shiller index measuring house prices in the 20 largest US cities rose 0.9% in March with 19 out of the 20 cities posting an increase in prices.

Markets were also awaiting the Conference Board's consumer confidence index later on, as well as regional manufacturing figures from Richmond and Dallas and service-sector data from Markit.

Hillshire Brands futures surged after chicken producer Pilgrim's Pride offered $45 a share for the packaged food company.

The deal, which values Hillshire at $6.4bn, has received the approval of the company's board and would effectively break up its planned acquisition of Birds Eye owner Pinnacle Foods, causing shares in the latter to sink in pre-market trade.

Bank of America headed higher ahead of the opening bell after the bank submitted a revised capital plan to Federal Reserve after it was forced to suspend a return to shareholders last month.

BC

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