NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures climbed on Thursday, rebounding after two days of sharp losses, ahead of housing and labor market data and another busy day for corporate earnings.
* The S&P 500 dropped on Tuesday and Wednesday, seeing its first back-to-back declines of more than 1 percent since October, dragged by plummeting energy shares after U.S. crude prices dropped to near six-year lows as the U.S. government reported record-high inventories.
* Alibaba Group shares (N:BABA) fell 6 percent in premarket trading after it posted revenue that missed Wall Street expectations. The decline took shares of Yahoo (O:YHOO), which announced the spinoff of its Alibaba stake Wednesday, down 4.8 percent.
* Coach Inc (N:COH) shares rose 6.7 percent in premarket trading after the handbag maker posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit.
* Ford (N:F) shares gained 2 percent in premarket trading after quarterly earnings beat Wall Street earnings expectations and the automaker maintained its 2015 profit forecast.
* Data due on Thursday includes weekly jobless claims applications at 8:30 a.m. and December pending home sales at 10:00 a.m. (1500 GMT).
Futures snapshot at 7:43 a.m.:
* S&P 500 e-minis were up 7.5 points, or 0.38 percent, with 175,249 contracts changing hands.
* Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 9 points, or 0.22 percent, in volume of 25,880 contracts.
* Dow e-minis were up 75 points, or 0.44 percent, with 26,756 contracts changing hands.