Futures inch up as prospects of September rate cut strengthen

By Shashwat Chauhan and Johann M Cherian

(Reuters) -U.S. stock index futures crept higher on Thursday, as sentiment remained upbeat about the Federal Reserve possibly kicking off its policy easing cycle next month, while investors awaited policymakers' commentary at Jackson Hole this week.

Expectations of a rate cut got a boost after minutes from the U.S. central bank's latest meeting showed on Wednesday a "vast majority" of officials said such an action was likely.

The July policy meeting occurred before a disappointing employment report for that month and a host of other reports that pointed to cooling inflation and a softening but resilient economy.

"The minutes are backward-looking but confirm the soft (dovish) signals from Fed Chair Powell after the meeting," noted Elisabet Kopelman, U.S. economist at banking group SEB.

"These plans should have received further support from weak data since the July meeting, and we expect Powell to send a clear signal on this in his speech in Jackson Hole tomorrow."

The much-awaited Jackson Hole Economic Symposium kicks off later in the day. Fed chair Powell is slated to deliver his remarks on Friday.

Money markets currently see a nearly 70% chance of an at least 25-basis-point (bps) cut in September, as per the CME FedWatch Tool, and about 100 bps of easing by December, according to LSEG data.

Wall Street's main indexes closed slightly higher in the previous session, with the S&P 500 notching its ninth session of gains out of 10 and now sitting less than 1% away from its all-time highs seen in July.

A weekly reading of U.S. jobless claims is due at 8:30 a.m ET, and preliminary estimates of August U.S. business activity are due at 9:45 a.m. ET.

At 07:09 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 33 points, or 0.08%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 9.75 points, or 0.17% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 55 points, or 0.28%.

Among individual stocks, data cloud analytics firm Snowflake raised its forecast for full-year product revenue. Still, Snowflake's shares were down 9.6% in premarket trading, with analysts attributing the drop to the company not pairing the climb in revenue projections with a rise in margin forecast.

Paramount Global gained 2.5% after a source told Reuters that veteran media executive Edgar Bronfman has sweetened his bid to take over the company, offering $6 billion for its controlling shareholder National Amusements and a minority stake in Paramount.

Shares of Charles Schwab were down 4.2% after Canada's TD Bank Group said it would sell part of its stake in the brokerage firm.

Zoom Video Communications added 2.6% after raising its annual revenue forecast, driven by strong demand for its AI-powered collaboration tools deployed in hybrid work models, while Advanced Auto Parts slid 11.5% after trimming its annual profit forecast.

(Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan and Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Shinjini Ganguli)