Wall St Set To Open Higher As Twitter, China ADRs Surge

U.S. stock index futures edged higher on Monday as a jump in the shares of Twitter and U.S.-listed Chinese firms offset concerns about more sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

Micro-blogging site Twitter Inc surged 20.4% in premarket trading after Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk reported a 9.2% stake in the company.

Tesla gained 0.7% to lead gains among megacap companies after the electric-vehicle maker reported record deliveries for the first quarter.

Meanwhile, shares of Bilibili Inc and Didi Global Inc jumped 9.1% and 7.4%, respectively, after China proposed revising confidentiality rules involving offshore listings.

However, global stocks stalled as investors kept an eye on the Ukraine conflict and for signals from the U.S. Federal Reserve on its monetary policy tightening plans.

A closely watched part of the U.S. Treasury yield curve, the gap between 2- and 10-year bond yields remained inverted, as a strong jobs report for March last week supported the view that the Fed would aggressively hike rates to tame soaring inflation. An inverted yield curve is widely seen as a signal of incoming economic recession. [US/]

"While (the inversion is) bad news in the sense that it's a very accurate indicator of a recession, the good news is historically it's a buy signal versus a sell signal in the short term," said Thomas Hayes, chairman at Great Hill Capital in New York.

"On average, the market tends to peak about a year to and year-and-a-half after the 2/10 spread inverts."

Germany said the West would agree to impose more sanctions on Russia in the coming days after Ukraine accused Russian forces of war crimes following civilian deaths near Kyiv.

After a dull start to the year, the Nasdaq has nearly halved its losses in the last few weeks helped by gains in big growth names and strong economic data. Nasdaq is now down 11.2% from its all-time closing high in November.

At 08:31 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 26 points, or 0.07%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 8.5 points, or 0.19%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 42.25 points, or 0.28%.

A U.S. Commerce Department report, due at 10:00 a.m. ET, is expected to show that factory orders dropped 0.5% in February, after rising 1.4% in January.

JPMorgan Chase & Co slipped 0.5% after CEO Jamie Dimon warned that the bank could lose about $1 billion on its Russia exposure.

Starbucks Corp fell 3.3% after former CEO Howard Schultz announced the suspension of the company's stock repurchasing program, as he returns this week to lead the global coffee chain for the third time.