Futures tracking the Dow Jones rose on Thursday as shares of Salesforce jumped after the company raised its annual revenue forecast, while investors awaited a key inflation reading due later in the day.
Salesforce shares rose 5.6% before the bell on upbeat annual and quarterly sales forecasts from the cloud-based software provider.
The S&P 500 index closed at a near three-week high on Wednesday after an ADP survey showed softer-than-expected growth in private payrolls, reinforcing hopes of a pause in the Federal Reserve's rate-hike cycle.
Investors now await the price consumption expenditure (PCE) index for July, the Fed's preferred inflation measure, due at 8:30 a.m. ET. The core PCE price index is expected to have climbed 4.2% in the 12 months through July, according to economists polled by Reuters.
"The markets are so data driven right now, aping the stance adopted by central bankers, and it feels like a worse than expected reading could extinguish the recently improved sentiment," said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.
"If it comes in higher than anticipated then we could see renewed nervousness ahead of the Fed's meeting next month."
Traders' bets on the Fed leaving interest rates unchanged in its September meeting stood at 88.5%, while odds of a pause in the November meeting rose to nearly 56% from 50% a day earlier, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
Investors also parsed Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic's comments as he laid out a case against any further U.S. interest rate hikes, saying monetary policy was tight enough to bring inflation down to 2% over a "reasonable" period.
Weighing on sentiment, China's manufacturing activity contracted for a fifth straight month, stoking concerns about demand prospects in the world's second largest economy.
U.S.-listed shares of Chinese companies including PDD Holdings, JD.com, Baidu and Alibaba fell between 1.3% and 3.0%.
At 5:52 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 94 points, or 0.27%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 0.5 points, or 0.01%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 30.25 points, or 0.2%.
Among other stocks, Victoria's Secret & Co fell 6.3% after the company forecast a decline in its third-quarter sales and missed its second-quarter results estimates.
(Reporting by Shristi Achar A in Bengaluru; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)
