U.S. stock futures are higher in pre-market trading for Thursday, January 25.The Nasdaq Futures are trading at 6,956.75 for up with +0.37% percent or +25.50 point. The S&P 500 Futures are trading at 2,844.50 for up with +0.12% percent or +3.50 point. The Dow Futures are trading at 26,306.00 for up with +0.14% percent or +36.00 point.

In overnight trading in the Eastern Hemisphere, Japan’s Nikkei 225 are trading at 23,669.49  with a loss of -1.13% percent or -271.29 point. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng are trading at 32,736.76  with a loss of -0.67% percent or -221.93 point. China’s Shanghai Composite are trading at 3,548.31  with a loss of -0.31% percent or -11.16  point. India’s BSE Sensex are trading at 36,024.62 with a loss of  -0.38% percent or -132.67 point at 12:15 PM.The FTSE 100 are trading at 7,656.46  for up with +0.17% percent or +13.03 point. Germany’s DAX are trading at 13,393.30  with a loss of -0.16% percent or  -21.44 point. France’s CAC 40 are trading at 5,532.68  with +0.35% percent or +19.17 point. The Stoxx Europe 600 are trading at 400.85 for up with +0.01% percent or +0.07 point.

Thursday’s Factors and Events

World’s second largest stock exchange, NASDAQ is planning to launch futures contracts for Bitcoin by 2018, according to a report by The Verge.

The move would allow investors to bet on the rise and fall of the cryptocurrency in real time.

However, NASDAQ is not the first from the traditional finance world to jump in and make most of the Bitcoin bandwagon. Earlier this month, Chicago’s CME Group said it would begin providing futures contracts on Bitcoin too.

Wednesday’s Activity

U.S. market were mixed on Wednesday. For the day the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 26,252.12 for up with +0.16% percent or +41.31 point. The S&P 500 closed at 2,837.54 with a loss of -0.06% percent or -1.59 point. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 7,415.06 with a loss of -0.61% percent or -45.23 point.

Other leading market index closes included the small-cap Russell 2000 Index closed at 1,599.61  with a loss of -0.69% percent or  -11.09 point; the S&P 600 Small-Cap Index closed at 972.96  with a loss of -0.64%  percent or  -6.23 point; the S&P 400 Mid-Cap Index closed at 1,987.74 with a loss of -0.31% percent or  -6.14 point; the S&P 100 Index closed at 1,256.54   with a loss of -0.07% percent or  -0.94 point; the Russell 3000 Index closed at 1,675.52  with a loss of -0.13% percent or  -2.19 point; the Russell 1000 Index closed at 1,570.69 with a loss of -0.09% percent or  -1.34 point; and the Dow Jones U.S. Select Dividend Index closed at 26,252.12  for up with +0.16% percent or +41.31 point.