By Shubham Batra and Ankika Biswas
(Reuters) -Nasdaq and S&P 500 futures jumped on Thursday as Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) extended its rally, while investors returning from the Juneteenth holiday awaited economic data and commentary from Federal Reserve officials to firm up bets on interest rate cuts this year.
Nvidia climbed 3.4% in premarket trading, after the semiconductor bellwether surpassed Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) on Tuesday to become the world's most valuable company with a market value of $3.335 trillion, as its high-end processors play a central role in a scramble to dominate artificial intelligence technology.
"Once again, Nvidia is the stand out performer ... as usual, there are concerns about the U.S. market's lack of breadth with so much of the overall performance concentrated in the stock price of a few corporations," David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation, said.
"The size and outperformance of this select group is reflected in its valuation, which is way above that of the rest of the (S&P 500) constituents."
The continued surge to new peaks by the AI chip leader and softer-than-expected U.S. retail sales data pushed the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq to close at record highs on Tuesday.
Other chip stocks Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL), Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) and Arm Holdings (NASDAQ:ARM) also gained between 1% and 2.4%.
Investors will now shift focus to more economic data including housing figures for May, jobless claims for the week ended June 15 and the Philly Fed Business Index, all due before market open.
Comments from Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari at 0845 ET will also be on investors' watch for any outlook on interest rates. Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin and San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly are also due to speak after the closing bell.
Money markets currently see a 59.6% chance of a 25-basis point rate cut by the U.S. central bank in September, according to LSEG's FedWatch data.
Yields on the two-year Treasury note, which closely reflect the interest rate expectations, and those on the benchmark 10-year note were up 3-4 basis points.
At 7:18 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 33 points, or 0.08%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 22.25 points, or 0.4%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 120.75 points, or 0.6%.
Among other movers, Dell Technologies and Super Micro Computer rose 3.1% and 4.7%, respectively, after Elon Musk said on social media platform X that the companies would provide server racks for the supercomputer that his startup xAI is building.