DJIA futures up 48 pts (Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - New York, 26 Aug - US futures ticked higher on rate-cut cheer at the start of a week featuring a series of big earnings reports including AI bellwether Nvidia.

Wall Street ended higher on Friday to close just short of record highs after Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell signalled, in no uncertain terms, 'the time is right' for an interest rate cut. The S&P 500 ended up 1.2%, the Dow rose 1.1% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq closed 1.5% higher.

While the Fed chief did not say when or by how much interest rates would come down, a cut in September is now being discounted as a dead certainty. The question investors are asking is whether the cut will be 25 basis points only or a heftier 50.

As inflation cools, the market is growing increasingly confident the central bank will cut deeper, or more often, to support flagging economic growth and a slowing jobs market.

Data on tap this week include durable goods orders later today, a second reading of GDP data and the weekly jobless claim report.

The earnings season marches on with a quarterly update from AI chip maker Nvidia the highlight of the week while Salesforce, Dell Technologies and CrowdStrike will also be on the block.

Futures on the Dow Jones were up 48.00 points, or 0.12%, S&P 500 futures were up 9.25 points, or 0.16%, while futures on the Nasdaq were 6.25 points, or 0.03%, higher.

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(RADIOCOR) 26-08-24 13:53:57 (0273) 5 NNNN