US STOCKS-Futures lifted by M&A activity, vaccine hopes

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* Futures up: Dow 0.81%, S&P 1.08%, Nasdaq 1.38%

By Medha Singh
Sept 14 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures climbed on
Monday on signs of progress in COVID-19 vaccine development and
a flurry of multi-billion dollar deals, including a report of
Oracle winning the battle for the U.S. arm of TikTok.
Shares of Oracle ORCL.N surged 8.4% in premarket trading,
leading gains among the S&P 500 constituents after sources told
Reuters the cloud services firm is entering a deal structured as
a partnership rather than an outright sale to try to navigate
geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Washington.
A Microsoft Corp MSFT.O led consortium that included
Walmart Inc WMT.N was also in talks for TikTok's U.S.
business. Their shares fell marginally.
Wall Street is coming off of two straight weeks of losses,
as investors sold heavyweight technology shares such as Apple
Inc AAPL.O and Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O that had powered the
market's strong rally since March.
Global equities got a lift on Monday after drugmaker
AstraZeneca AZN.L resumed its British clinical trials of its
COVID-19 vaccine, one of the most advanced in development.
Pfizer Inc PFE.N also rose 1.8% after the drugmaker and
German biotech firm BioNTech SE 22UAy.F proposed expansion of
their Phase 3 pivotal COVID-19 vaccine trial to about 44,000
participants. Later this week investors will pay attention to the Federal
Reserve's last policy meeting before the Nov. 3 U.S.
presidential elections.
Gilead Sciences Inc GILD.O slipped 0.6% as it said will
acquire biotech company Immunomedics Inc IMMU.O for $21
billion, a move that will strengthen its cancer portfolio by
gaining access to a promising drug. Nvidia Corp NVDA.O added 6.6% on plans to buy UK-based
chip designer Arm from Japan's SoftBank Group Corp 9984.T for
as much as $40 billion, in a deal set to reshape the global
semiconductor landscape.
At 6:20 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were up 223 points, or
0.81%. S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were up 36 points, or 1.08% and
Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were up 152.5 points, or 1.38%.