Investing.com - The Dow is set to pass its intraday record high on Friday and other indexes were also near record highs after upbeat trade news from China, while an upside surprise on core inflation wasn't seen as enough to stop the Federal Reserve cutting rates next week.
Nasdaq 100 futures rose 25 points or 0.3% by 6:45 AM ET (10:45 GMT), while Dow futures gained 101 points or 0.4% and S&P 500 futures were up 9 points or 0.3%.
China will exempt some agricultural products from more tariffs on U.S. goods, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said on Friday, the first substantial move by the Chinese side in some time. Both sides have made conciliatory gestures ahead of planned trade talks in the coming weeks. U.S. President Donald Trump delayed a tariff increase on some Chinese goods earlier this week.
Bellwether stock Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) was up 0.4%, while Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) gained 0.3% and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) rose 0.4%. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) inched up 0.3%, while Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) was up 0.4%.
Elsewhere, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) fell 0.8%, while British American Tobacco (NYSE:BTI) slipped 2.1%.
In commodities, crude oil fell 0.1% to $55.05 a barrel. Gold futures were up 0.3% to $1,512.15 a troy ounce, while the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, slipped 0.3% to 98.045.