Buckle up, Wall Street

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Rosy earnings from cell phone maker Nokia helped boost stock futures Thursday, although it's likely that Wall Street will keep heading down a rocky path.

At 8:13 a.m. ET, futures were higher, with a comparison to fair value pointing to gains for U.S. stocks at the market open.

Finnish cell phone maker Nokia (Charts) posted upbeat sales and profits Thursday on strength in emerging markets. Shares of the company climbed 9 percent in Frankfurt.

The results come on the heels of solid earnings reported by Starbucks and Walt Disney after the market close Wednesday.

Starbucks (Charts, Fortune 500) posted higher profit and sales and affirmed its full-year earnings outlook. Shares of the coffee retailer rose 2 percent in premarket trading.

Walt Disney (Charts, Fortune 500) also reported a rise in quarterly profit, lifted by strength in its TV and theme park businesses. The stock edged higher in premarket trading.

Investors may be soothed by the latest sign of corporate profit strength, but trading is likely to remain turbulent as investors continue to worry about the spread of problems in the subprime mortgage sector.

They're also likely to be on edge ahead of the government's closely watched employment report, due Friday. Employers are forecast to have added 135,000 jobs last month, up slightly from the gain of 132,000 jobs in June, according to economists surveyed by Briefing.com.

Economic releases due Thursday are a reading on weekly jobless claims and a report on June factory orders.

Stocks fluctuated through most of Wednesday's session before rallying late in the day to end the day sharply higher. The advance on Wall Street offered some support to global stock markets. Asian stocks tiptoed higher and European markets rose in midday trading.

In major corporate news, Mattel's (Charts, Fortune 500) Fisher-Price unit issued a global recall of 1.5 million toys made in China on Wednesday because their paint may contain too much lead. The company says the recall will cost $30 million.

Oil prices kept backing down from the record set during the previous session. U.S. light crude for September delivery fell 35 cents to $76.18 a barrel in electronic trading. The front-month contract hit a new trading high of $78.77 a barrel Wednesday.

Treasury prices eased, raising the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 4.8 percent from 4.79 percent late Wednesday.