1. Market overview

The Federal Reserve decided to keep interest rates steady, which propelled U.S. markets higher on Wednesday. Now U.S. stock futures are holding onto those gains.

Investors are happy that interest rates are staying near their lowest levels ever. The policy is meant to get money flowing through the veins of the economy and support inflation and employment.

European markets are all rising in early trading on the back of the Fed announcement, and Germany's Dax is up about 1.2%. Asian markets also made solid gains over the course of the day.

2. Gold rallies after Fed statement

Gold prices rose to a 2-week high during Europe's session on Thursday, as the USD dropped after the Federal Reserve held off on raising interest rates and scaled back the number of rate hikes it expects next year.

The precious metal is sensitive to moves in U.S. rates, which lift the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets such as bullion. A gradual path to higher rates is seen as less of a threat to gold prices than a swift series of increases.

3. Stocks latest news

Tech publication Recode is reporting that Yahoo (YHOO, Tech30) will confirm a massive data breach this week, based on interviews with anonymous sources. The report said the hack "exposed several hundred million user accounts" and could complicate Verizon (VZ, Tech30)'s planned $4.8 billion takeover of Yahoo. Yahoo was not immediately available to comment.

It's also worth keeping an eye on T-Mobile (TMUS) after the company said it was working to solve overnight problems with its high-speed network.

The company said in an early morning tweet: "We're aware of reported instances of LTE outages. So sorry for any inconvenience. Our engineers are on it right now working hard to resolve."

Samsung (SSNLF) shares on the other hand continued their recovery on Thursday, rising 1.6%. They're now less than 5% away from an August all-time high.

Shares in Samsung slumped after the company alerted consumers to a problem with the Galaxy Note 7 devices on September 2. The lithium-ion batteries in some phones are faulty and could overheat or even catch fire.

Samsung sold 2.5 million of the phones globally before halting. It believes the issue only impacts 0.1% of Note 7s, but is recalling all devices globally.

4. Earnings and economics

The U.S. National Association of Realtors will post its latest monthly report on the U.S. housing market at 14:00GMT This report will outline how sales are performing for existing homes.

Autozone (AZO) and Rite Aid (RAD) will post quarterly earnings ahead of the open.