Another rally brewing on Wall Street

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Wall Street was poised to extend Wednesday's rally, after a tame inflation reading, record-breaking annual earnings from oil giant Exxon and upbeat news from the tech sector.

At 9 a.m. ET, Nasdaq and S&P futures were pointing to a higher open.

Kicking off another busy session was the Commerce Department's income and spending, which came in as expected.

Personal income rose 0.5 percent in the month and spending by individuals rose 0.7 percent.

A key inflation reading on consumer prices, climbed 0.1 percent in December, while analysts were expecting a 0.2 percent increase.

ExxonMobil (Charts) posted the largest annual profit in U.S. history, despite a dip in its fourth-quarter earnings.

The news comes on the heels of improved earnings from rival Royal Dutch Shell (Charts) whose results topped forecasts, lifting its shares in early European trading.

The tech sector also offered investors plenty of optimism late Thursday after Dell (Charts) announced that founder and chairman Michael Dell would reassume the CEO post, replacing Kevin Rollins, who had been under fire from some investors for market share losses. In an interview with Fortune Dell said the company that bears his name "can execute better than it has recently."

Shares of Dell gained nearly 4 percent in after-hours trading.

Internet search leader Google (Charts) reported late Thursday earnings that nearly tripled, topping forecasts. Still, shares of the tech bellwether slipped about 1.3 percent after-hours as some investors had been hoping for the company to beat forecasts by an even wider margin.

Oil erased early declines. U.S. light crude gained 12 cents to $58.26 a barrel in electronic trading.

Treasury prices climbed. The 10-year note yield fell to 4.79 percent from 4.8 percent late Wednesday, helped by the personal income and spending report and bigger-than-expected decline in weekly jobless claims.

Weekly initial jobless claims fell by 20,000 last week to 307,000, the government reported, falling more than expected. Wall Street forecast claims to hit 315,000.

In overseas markets, stocks in Asia rose after a generally positive statement from the U.S. Federal Reserve which had lifted U.S. stocks in afternoon trading Wednesday, taking the Dow to yet another record high at the close. Stocks in Europe also were higher in early trading.

The dollar was lower against the yen and little changed against the euro in early trading.

In other corporate news, Vornado Realty Trust (Charts) upped its buyout offer for Equity Office Properties Trust (Charts) to $56 per share, topping the $54 per share offering by private equity firm Blackstone Group, in an ongoing battled for the real estate investment trust.

Insurance broker Marsh & McLennan (Charts) announced it is selling its Putnam Investments unit for $3.9 billion to Great-West Lifeco Inc., a Canadian financial services holding company.

The senior Microsoft (Charts) executive who oversaw the launch of its Zune digital music player plans to leave the company, the company announced Wednesday.

Shares of coffee retailer Starbucks (Charts) gained 1.3 percent in after-hours trading after it posted improved earnings that met forecasts.

Major automakers are also reporting January sales during the day Thursday. Ford warned Wednesday its sales would be down 20 percent in January, which is worse than the 14 percent drop forecast by sales tracker Edmunds.com. Overall, Edmunds sees industry sales narrowly higher, with General Motors and DaimlerChrysler continuing to see lower sales, while Japanese automakers improve.

Officials from Time Warner (Charts) unit Turner Broadcasting were forced to apologize Wednesday after a promotion in Boston for the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim caused a terror alert that prompted the closure of bridges and a stretch of the Charles River there. CNNMoney.com is a unit of Time Warner.

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