US STOCKS-Futures fall as jobless claims hover at 1 mln mark; focus shifts to Powell

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* Coty drops after wider-than-expected quarterly loss
* Abbott jumps after U.S. marketing nod for $5 COVID-19 test
* Futures: Dow flat, S&P dips 0.09%, Nasdaq down 0.19%

(Adds comment, details; updates prices)
By Medha Singh and Devik Jain
Aug 27 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures fell on Thursday
as weekly jobless claims hovered near the 1 million mark, while
investors waited to hear from Jerome Powell on the Federal
Reserve's approach to lifting the economy out of a pandemic-led
recession.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits totaled a
seasonally adjusted 1.006 million for the week ended Aug. 22,
compared with 1.104 million in the prior week, the Labor
Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had
forecast 1 million applications. Even as unemployment remains at high levels in the worst
downturn since the Great Depression, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq
have risen to new highs, largely driven by investors pouring
into heavyweight technology-related stocks.
All eyes are now on Powell, who is likely to make a case for
higher inflation tolerance and lower interest rates in an
overhaul of the central bank's policy approach in his remarks at
the virtual Jackson Hole symposium. The Fed chief's address
begins at 9:10 a.m. EDT (1310 GMT). "All this free money is going to start to show up in the
form of some type of inflation," said Dennis Dick, head of
markets structure, proprietary trader at Bright Trading LLC in
Las Vegas.
"The money managers are starting to get ahead of that trade
and that's why they continue to go into the stocks that they
deem the safest, which is the tech stocks right now."
At 8:34 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were down 3 points, or
0.01%, S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were down 3 points, or 0.09% and
Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were down 22.75 points, or 0.19%.
Among early movers, NetApp Inc NTAP.O jumped 8.5% in
premarket trading after it posted better-than-expected quarterly
results, powered by demand for its cloud services.
Abbott Laboratories ABT.N surged 9% after the medical
device maker won U.S. marketing authorization for a $5 rapid
COVID-19 portable antigen test. Cosmetics maker Coty Inc COTY.N shed 4.7% after posting a
bigger-than-expected quarterly loss as demand for its beauty
products took a hit from closures of stores and parlors.