Wall Street looks for a cheery open

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks were poised for a moderate open on Thursday, a half day of Christmas Eve trading to close out a holiday-shortened week, showing little reaction to Senate votes and economic reports.

The Dow Jones industrial average, Nasdaq-100 and S&P-500 futures were all higher.

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

Futures showed little reaction to the Senate's 60-39 vote to pass the health care bill, which was widely expected to be approved. The Senate also passed a $290 billion increase to the amount of debt the Treasury is permitted by law to have, raising the debt ceiling to $12.394 trillion from $12.104 trillion.

Stocks closed slightly higher on Wednesday, a fourth consecutive day of gains. Market-movers included rising tech shares and commodity prices, as well as a report that said new home sales posted the biggest decline since April.

"The Santa rally is going to continue," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist for Avalon Partners.

Cardillo said that expectations of the health care bill passing the Senate were "baked into" the markets. Also, he doesn't expect to see much impact from the economic indicators, including weekly jobless claims and durable goods orders.

"In this abbreviated session, with very light volume, we'll follow world markets," he said.

Economy: The Commerce Department released its report on durable goods orders, showing a gain of 0.2% in November which fell short of market expectations. A consensus of economists surveyed by Briefing.com had projected that new orders for long-lasting manufactured goods rose 0.4% in November after a decline of 0.6% the previous month.

Excluding transportation, durable goods orders still rose 0.2%, falling short of the 1% rise expected by Briefing.com consensus.

The government's weekly jobless claims report also came in Thursday morning. The government announced that 452,000 claims were filed in the week ended Dec. 19. Economists had expected the number of first-time filers to fall to 470,000 from the previous week's 480,000 new claims.

The stock exchange will close at 1 p.m. ET Thursday and will remain dark Friday.

World markets: Asian markets posted gains for the day, while European indexes were all advancing in midday trading.

Bonds: The price of the 10-year note fell, driving the yield up to 3.76%.

Money and oil: The dollar was down versus most of the major international currencies, but edged up against the yen.

Crude oil for January delivery slipped 27 cents to $76.40 a barrel. This is after strong gains on Wednesday, on a report showing that crude supplies fell more than twice as much as analysts projected, for the second week in a row.

Gold for February delivery rose $7.30 to $1,101.30 per ounce.