A flurry of impressive tech stock earnings and comments from the ECB have kept the momentum going in US futures trading.
The benchmark Dow Jones closed Thursday's session up an impressive 320 points at 17,489, while the tech heavy Nasdaq added 80 to move to 4,920. The broader based S&P500 added 34 to 2,053 as investors hailed quarterly numbers from a number of firms.
After the bell, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) confounded expectations with a big third quarter profit gain after analysts had expected a loss - thanks to a cloud computing business gain.
Shares gained around 10% as it reported a $79mln profit for the third quarter.
Also gaining after hours was Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), whose shares hit a 15 year high, as it trumped revenue and earnings forecasts. Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), the parent company of search engine giant Google was also in focus, and its shares also rose 10% after hours, as it announced it will spend over $5bn (£3.3bn) on a giant share buyback from investors.
In futures trading today, the momentum is upwards, with the Dow trading up 74 points, the Nasdaq ahead by over 31 and the broader S&P500 futures up almost 8%.
In Europe shares, are also on the up with the German Dax up 213 and the UK Footsie up over 70%.
Bernard Aw, at IG Index, said: "Overnight equity markets posted strong gains, and euro was dumped. The risk uptake spread over to the Asian session today.
"ECB President Mario Draghi indicated that the trans-national central bank is willing to step up its stimulus programme, as the euro-zone grappled with a sluggish recovery and persistently weak inflation.
"He said late Thursday, ‘It was not a wait-and-see, but it was a work-and-assess. We are ready to act if needed, we are open to a whole menu of monetary policy instruments.’
Looking ahead to the rest of the day stateside, traders can expect quarterly reports from companies from various sectors, including including American Airlines (NYSE: AAL), and consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG)..