U.S. stock futures pointed to gains on Thursday, as investors awaited a host of economic data while eyeing manufacturing surveys from China and Europe.

Data due later include weekly jobless claims, November producer prices, the Empire State manufacturing index for December and current account data, all due at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time. Industrial production data for November is due at 9:15 a.m. Eastern and the Philadelphia Fed’s manufacturing survey for November is due at 10 a.m. Eastern.

Update on my newest newsletter – JasonBondPicks Winning Day Trades

All of my swing trades go out by chat, Skype, text and email in real-time. Wednesday I took JASO short by myself because that’s a scalp, there was no alert other than in chat. Scalps are day trades lasting a very short period of time and I don’t mix them with my swing trade alerts because it’s too hard to follow if you’re expecting buy and hold for 1-10 days after getting an email only to find I’m regularly out 1-hour later. This is why I’m starting JasonBondPicks Winning Day Trades to compliment JasonBondPicks Winning Swing Trades. A simple addon newsletter in which alerts will go out in real-time but the subscribers will know to expect shorter time frames on the trades. We’re probably 2 weeks out from having this ready so my goal will be to launch it to start the new year but hopefully sooner.

We have an important webinar tonight about shorting at 9 p.m. EST in our private chat – hope to see you there – http://www.jasonbondpicks.com/chat7/chat.php

As always, trades are listed in the order they were bought newest to oldest (Least I think that’s what I usually do, haha).

GLUU – You saw my video on GLUU yesterday and many of you added at $3 which could make you a big winner heading into Friday’s Zynga IPO. This morning with futures up I’d like to see GLUU continue up and close in the $3.40 – $3.50 range heading into Friday. If we get that then there’s a real chance GLUU could breakout this week above $3.60 – $3.80 and I’d love to be in for that ride. It’ll take a lot of things to come together timing wise like a good pricing on Zynga today, a bull market and some institutional buying to pull that off but of all the stocks I’m watching I think GLUU has the best chance at short term gains from where I’m positioned. Timing is everything and right now yesterday’s addon proved to be good timing – I’ll be one happy camper if that sticks into Friday.

USAT – Still liking USAT above $1 and will hold onto this one until $1.60 or better. Boring trade I agree but where I’m positioned at $1.23 I’m not going to just cut a $5k loss because I’m bored. Technically it’s holding a critical support so I’ll give the trade room to breath so long as that stays in play. I realize this isn’t a long term newsletter so I’m sorry a few of these dogs have been trailing me for so long – once I work out of them I’ll do my best to keep swings 1-10 days and not a month. Same applies for HKN and LOCM below.

HKN – I’ve really worked myself into a corner here by playing Ledbed’s pump the wrong way. Assuming he would repump was a bad idea and look where it got me. I told you all this would be a risky bet and that’s exactly what it proved to be. A lot can be learned here starting with promoters are hard to predict and playing illiquid stocks just isn’t wise. Holding them swing to long is even worse… I’m looking for exit daily on this stock but it is a real company capable of trading higher on news so that’s what I’m waiting for. Hopefully it’s good news ha!!!

LOCM – Drifting lower again with the market but it’s been a long time since we’ve seen some big news out of Local.com. These guys put up good news about 1-2 times per quarter so here’s to hoping I’m in it still when that happens. I’ve been up as much as $4,000 on this trade from my entry at $2.03 but I maintain I’d like $2.70 per share or higher for a $7,000 – $10,000 score so I’ll ride it out since I’m in right at support.