Opening calls are indicating a higher open this morning continuing the positive momentum experienced in Asia overnight.

Asian stocks rose, sending the regional benchmark index toward its longest-ever streak of weekly gains, as U.S. jobs and housing data beat projections, boosting confidence the world’s largest economy is recovering.

U.S. stocks closed higher Thursday, as investors digested better-than-expected economic news.

A strong report on Germany’ economy and a decent reading on U.S. unemployment helped propel all three indexes up for most of the trading day. The Dow is up 6% from the start of the year. The S&P 500 has gained nearly 8%, and the Nasdaq has jumped 13%.

Events Today

Italy will be tendering between 2 billion to 2.5 billion euros worth of short-dated bonds and up to half a billion in longer dated bonds, both at 10.00 GMT.

In earnings news Lloyds Banking Group, reported a full year pre-tax loss of 3.5 billion pounds ($5.5 billion), down from a profit of 281 million pounds in 2010. The loss is lower than forecasts had suggested of 4 billion pounds.