By Medha Singh and Twesha Dikshit
June 1 (Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures climbed on Monday, supported by gains in Nvidia and Microsoft following their latest AI initiatives as investors looked past lingering uncertainty surrounding Middle East tensions.
Nvidia rose 2.4% in premarket trading after the world’s most valuable company unveiled a new chip, set for release this fall, which brings AI capabilities to laptops and desktops.
The chip is a result of a three-year partnership with Microsoft to “reinvent the PC” for the AI era, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said. Microsoft shares added 3.3%.
Other PC chipmakers dropped. AMD and Intel fell more than 4% each, Apple dipped nearly 1% and Qualcomm tumbled 8.6%.
The broader mood was somber and oil prices climbed after the latest attacks between the U.S. and Iran raised concerns over efforts to negotiate an end to the three-month-old conflict.
Wall Street’s main indexes closed May at record highs, buoyed by hopes of an eventual end to the war and blowout first-quarter earnings. Optimism around AI has helped boost U.S. equities, but concerns over the economic impact from the hostilities remain.
“We think the next phase for market gains is likely to be characterized by a broadening of leadership beyond the mega caps, increased rotation within equities, and more frequent episodes of volatility as capital is reallocated,” UBS analysts said in a note.
Investors will turn to Friday’s jobs report ahead of Kevin Warsh’s debut policy meeting as chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve this month, against the backdrop of rising inflation fears linked to the Iran war.
Traders have priced in a near 70% chance of a quarter-point rate hike before the end of the year.
At 06:48 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis rose 223 points, or 0.44%, S&P 500 E-minis added 20.75 points, or 0.27%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 96.25 points, or 0.32%.
AI-server maker Dell last week forecast strong results and focus will shift to Broadcom earnings on Wednesday. Broadcom is the second-largest U.S. chipmaker by market value after Nvidia.
Comments from a slew of central bank officials and a beige book report this week will also be watched before the Fed enters its pre-meeting blackout period on Saturday.
In other company news, Cadence Design Systems rose 7.1% after launching an autonomous engineer for chip design, powered by Nvidia.
Taylor Morrison Home Corp jumped 22.1% after Berkshire Hathaway agreed to buy the homebuilder for $6.8 billion in cash.
Micron rose 5.5% to $1,022, topping the $1,000 mark for the first time. Its shares have soared nearly 90% in May.
(Reporting by Medha Singh and Twesha Dikshit in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Pooja Desai)