The Dow is expected to start the final trading day of the week in a positive fashion on the back of good retail sales figures.

Retail sales showed an unexpected rise in February, up by 0.3% on the previous month, according to the Commerce Department.

Elsewhere on the economic front, the University of Michigan is due to release its preliminary consumer sentiment index for March.

The Dow Jones is expected to open 24 points higher, while the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 are seen flat.

Former bosses at Lehman Brothers have been heavily criticised for employing an accounting "gimmick" that managed to hide the failed bank's insolvency. A year-long investigation into the collapse of Lehman by court-appointed examiner, Anton Valukas, found that ex-chairman and chief executive, Dick Fuld, and senior executives regularly ignored the bank's own risk controls.

The chairman of law firm Jenner & Block decided there had been no systematic wrong-doing, but called the use of the accounting practice known as Repo 105 "inherently improper". That, unknown to investors or regulators, managed to temporarily wipe $50bn of assets from Lehman's balance sheet in 2008, giving the illusion that debt was falling.

Global pharmaceuticals leviathan GlaxoSmithKline has dumped the rest of its holding in former subsidiary Maxygen. Glaxo said it no longer owns any shares in the US-based protein drug developer after selling its entire holding of 1.433m shares.

The shares, which represented around 4.5% of the issued share capital of Maxygen, were held by its wholly owned subsidiaries Glaxo Group Limited and GlaxoSmithKline Services Unlimited.

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