NEW YORK (AP) — Stock futures pointed to a modest advance Friday as oil prices dropped back below $114 a barrel, suggesting to Wall Street that consumers' energy bills will become more manageable.

Light, sweet crude fell $1.80 to $113.21 a barrel in premarket electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

To be sure, a big reason that oil and other commodities are falling is the belief that economies around the world are slowing down, if not in recession. On Thursday, both Germany and France reported declines in second-quarter gross domestic product, their first quarterly decreases in years.

But the notion that U.S. consumers, a major driver of the nation's economic growth, might be able to increase their discretionary spending again has helped to give stocks a lift. On Thursday, lower oil prices along with bargain-hunting in the financial sector drove the stock market higher to regain some of the previous two sessions' steep losses.

Dow Jones industrial futures rose 32, or 0.28 percent, to 11,650. Standard & Poor's 500 index futures rose 3.90, or 0.30 percent, to 1,297.70, and Nasdaq 100 index futures rose 5.25, or 0.27 percent, to 1,971.00.

Bonds were little changed ahead of the market's open. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which usually moves opposite its price, was at 3.90 percent, the same as late Thursday.

The dollar — whose comeback has been stoking the sell-off in oil — continued to rise against other major currencies. Gold also rose.

Later in the morning, the University of Michigan will release its preliminary reading on August consumer sentiment, which is expected to tick higher, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Thomson Financial/IFR.

In other economic data, the Federal Reserve is expected to report that industrial production was flat in July compared to the previous month.

Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 0.48 percent. In morning trading, Britain's FTSE 100 rose 1.24 percent, Germany's DAX index rose 0.42 percent, and France's CAC-40 rose 0.97 percent.

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