US STOCKS-Futures higher on news of U.S.-China trade talks

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* Futures up: Dow 0.94%, S&P 0.88%, Nasdaq 1.14%

By Uday Sampath Kumar
Sept 5 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures rose on Thursday
as the United States and China agreed to hold high-level talks
next month, raising hopes of a de-escalation in a trade war that
has bruised global economic growth.
China's Commerce Ministry said its trade team will hold
talks with their U.S. counterparts in mid-September in
preparation for high level negotiations in early October.
Shares of chipmakers, sensitive to tariffs, rose in
premarket trading, with Intel Corp INTC.O , Advanced Micro
Devices Inc AMD.O and Nvidia Corp NVDA.O gaining between
1.2% and 2%.
Industrial bellwethers Boeing Co BA.N and Caterpillar Inc
CAT.N rose over 1% each.
Apple Inc AAPL.O led the FAANG group of stocks higher,
gaining 1.1%, while Facebook Inc FB.O , Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O ,
Netflix Inc NFLX.O and Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O rose between
0.8% and 1%.
Wall Street came under pressure at the start of the week as
Beijing and Washington began slapping tariffs on each other's
good as well as data that showed a contraction in U.S. factory
activity in August.
The trade dispute, which began over a year ago, has dented
global economic activity and roiled financial markets. Investors
are now pinning hopes on central banks to step in and ease
monetary policy to help boost growth.
Market participants are currently expecting a quarter
percentage point cut in interest rates by the Federal Reserve at
its mid-September meeting.
At 7:05 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were up 249 points, or
0.94%. S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were up 26 points, or 0.88% and
Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were up 88.25 points, or 1.14%.
Among other stocks, Slack Technologies Inc WORK.N fell
13.1% after the workplace messaging platform on Wednesday
forecast slowing revenue growth in the second half and a
bigger-than-expected third-quarter loss. While market sentiment this week has largely been driven by
global trade and political news, investors will likely shift
their focus to nonfarm payrolls data due on Friday, with
analysts cautioning that any weakness could be a sign of the
U.S. economy slowing.
The ADP national employment data, considered a precursor to
the Labor Department's more comprehensive jobs report, is
expected to show private payrolls increased by 149,000 jobs in
August, after gaining by 156,000 jobs in July. The data is due
at 8:15 a.m. ET.