Stocks set for gains

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- U.S. stock futures rose modestly Friday morning, ahead of a barrage of economic reports.

At 8:45 a.m. ET, Dow Jones industrial average, Standard & Poor's 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures were higher.

Futures measure current index values against perceived future performance and offer an indication of how markets may open when trading begins in New York.

This follows a mixed stock performance on Thursday, when investors took news of Chrysler's bankruptcy filing in stride, and shares for auto rivals General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) and Ford Motor Co. (F, Fortune 500) made significant gains.

Todd Leone, head trader at Cowen & Co., said markets have been resilient in the face of the Chrysler bankruptcy filing because it was "priced in" and widely expected.

He said markets will probably open higher, as suggested by the futures, but will sell off later in the day and "flatten out ahead of the weekend." He said that many traders will want to pull their money out of equities before Monday, since Mondays have been poor performers on the stock market as of late.

Economy: Investors are looking at a busy economic calendar Friday.

At 10 a.m. ET, the ISM survey -- a key gauge of manufacturing activity -- comes out. The index is expected to rise to 38.4 for April, according to a consensus of economist opinion from Briefing.com. This is compared to the prior month's level of 36.3.

Factory orders are also due out at 10 a.m. ET. For the month of March, orders are expected to have dipped 0.6%, according to Briefing.com consensus. In the previous month, order increased by 1.8%.

Banks: Trading could be choppy though as investors are awaiting the release of the results of the U.S. government's so-called stress tests on banks. Those are due out next week.

Autos: Auto sales for April come out Friday, a day after Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Chrysler was forced to file for bankruptcy after lenders refused a U.S. Treasury Department demand to reduce the amount of money the troubled automaker owed them.

But a deal has been reached to combine the company with Fiat in order to allow Chrysler to stay in business.

Companies: Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) said it sold its Japanese retail brokerage unit to Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group. Citi said the deal is worth $7.9 billion.

MasterCard (MA, Fortune 500) beat analyst expectations with its first-quarter earnings, despite a plunge in profit compared to the year-ago period to $367 million, or $2.81 per share.

Chevron (CVX, Fortune 500) reported a plunge in first-quarter earnings from one year ago, to $1.84 billion, or 92 cents per share diluted.

World markets: Stocks in Asia finished mostly higher. Many markets in Europe were closed, but London shares were lower in morning trading.

Oil and money: Oil prices rose 22 cents a barrel to $51.34. The dollar rose versus the yen, but slipped against the euro and the British pound.