Nasdaq futures up 69 points (Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - New York, 09 Jul - US futures were higher ahead of a first round of testimony to Congress by Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell that could spill clues on where interest rates are heading.

Wall Street ended mixed yesterday in lacklustre trade with the S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq rising respectively 0.1% and 0.3% to post more record highs. The Dow fell 0.1%.

With no major data on the agenda, all eyes are on Fed chief Powell who will start his semiannual address to Congress later today in front of the Senate Banking Committee. He will then repeat the address tomorrow before the House Financial Services Committee.

The Fed last week acknowledged progress has been made in bringing down inflation towards its 2% target rate but cautioned it still wants to see more evidence the easing is sustainable before it starts to cut rates.

Buoyed by recent data, investors are growing increasingly confident a first rate cut will come in September. With this in mind, a key focus this week will Thursday's inflation data for June which could help swing the argument on monetary policy in favour of at least one cut sometime this year.

On the corporate front, technology stocks are generally higher in premarket trade after healthy gains bagged yesterday with Intel up 3% and chipmakers Nvidia and Micron Technology also ahead.

Smart Global Holdings (SGH), which makes computing and memory technology, is set to report results after the closing bell.

Futures on the Dow Jones were up 20.00 points, or 0.05%, S&P 500 futures were up 11.25 points, or 0.20%, while futures on the Nasdaq were 69.00 points, or 0.33%, higher.

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(RADIOCOR) 09-07-24 13:48:32 (0350) 5 NNNN