NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Winning bids on eBay and wireless connections on Motorola phones could combine to lift U.S. stocks when markets open Thursday.

Futures were up in early trading, indicating a higher opening for stocks after the Dow and Standard & Poor's 500 hit new lows for the year Wednesday. Stocks got a boost after the Labor Department said that people filing for initial jobless claims posted its largest decline since December of 2001.

But a worse-than-expected report on consumer prices and comments from the various Federal Reserve banks about mounting price pressures drove stocks lower.

After the market close Wednesday, there were better than expected earnings from online auction site eBay (Research) and a strong outlook and results from cell phone maker Motorola (Research).

Earnings reports due early Thursday include Dow components McDonalds (Research) and Merck (Research) as well as United Parcel Service (Research), the world's largest transportation company. After the bell earnings Thursday include search engine Google (Research).

Oil prices were lower Thursday following Wednesday's gain on an inventories report showing an unexpected drop in U.S. fuel supplies.

The May light crude contract lost 47 cents to $53.56 a barrel in electronic trading, while the May contract for Brent crude fell 35 cents to $53.43.

Major markets in Asia closed mixed Thursday following the U.S. sell-off. Major European markets were mostly higher in early trading.

Treasury prices were lower in early trading, lifting the yield on the 10-year note to 4.22 percent from the 4.18 percent level late Wednesday. The dollar gained ground on the euro and the yen.

Investors also will get to hear comments from Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan on federal budget deficits and ways to close the government spending gap. His testimony before the Senate Budget committee is due to start at 10 a.m. ET.

A report on leading economic indicators is due out at 10 a.m. ET.

In other corporate news, the New York Stock Exchange announced after the market close Wednesday that it will merge with electronic market operator Archipelago Holdings (Research). The $400 million deal will transform the NYSE into a publicly traded, for-profit company and give current Archipelago shareholders a 30 percent stake in the new exchange.

Shares of Archipelago gained $1.86, or 11 percent, to $18.86 in trading Wednesday, with that gain coming in the last 30 minutes of regular-hours trading.

French spirits maker Pernod Ricard and U.S.-based Fortune Brands (Research) Thursday officially announced their anticipated deal to buy British rival Allied Domecq (Research) for $14 billion.

Time Warner (Research) and Comcast (Research) have reached a definitive agreement to buy bankrupt cable operator Adelphia Communications Corp. Comcast is already the nation's largest cable operator, while Time Warner, owner of the nation's No. 2 cable operator Time Warner Cable, also owns CNN/Money.

For a more detailed look at the markets before the open, click here.