* eBay, Netflix jump premarket after quarterly results
* Jobless claims, leading indicators on tap
* Futures up: Dow 53 pts, S&P 6.6 pts, Nasdaq 15.75 pts
NEW YORK, Oct 21 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures rose on Thursday as bets on low interest rates and monetary easing from the U.S. Federal Reserve continued to lead investors into buying risky assets like stocks and commodities.
* China's growth ebbed in the third quarter while inflation edged a touch higher, showing the world's second-largest economy was strong and far from overheating, and suggesting an interest rate rise earlier this week may be enough for now.
* Earnings reports will be in the spotlight, with results from Caterpillar Inc likely to provide further insight into the health of the construction sector.
* Other Dow components due to report include Travelers Cos Inc, AT&T Inc, McDonald's Corp and American Express Co.
* S&P 500 futures rose 6.6 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures gained 53 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures added 15.75 points.
* The U.S. dollar fell against the euro on belief the interest rate differential between the two currencies will continue to widen, while expectations of more money printing from the Fed kept the greenback under pressure against the yen.
* The 30-day correlation between the S&P 500 and the dollar index held below -0.9 for a seventh day running.
* The dollar briefly rose on short-covering after U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said major currencies were roughly in alignment, but the gains were tempered ahead of a G20 meeting likely to debate currency policies.
* In premarket trading, online auctioneer eBay Inc rose 6.6 percent, and Netflix Inc, the DVD rental and movie streaming service, jumped 12 percent on upbeat quarterly results late Wednesday. and.
* Investors will also eye weekly first-time jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT). Economists in a Reuters survey forecast a total of 455,000 new filings compared with 462,000 in the prior week.
* At 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) both the Index of Leading Economic Indicators for September and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's October business index are due.
* Wall Street bounced back Wednesday as a fall in the dollar spurred buying in industrial and commodity-linked shares, while another batch of strong corporate earnings added to gains.