(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures traded in a tight range on Friday as investors awaited earnings reports from big U.S. banks to gauge how corporate America has been faring in the current high interest rate environment.

Friday marks the unofficial start to the quarterly earnings season, with results from three major U.S. banks, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup and Wells Fargo & Co, due before the opening bell.

BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, and custodian bank State Street are also slated to report their quarterly numbers later in the day.

For the upcoming quarterly results, earnings are expected to grow 5% year-on-year, according to LSEG data.

The Dow and the S&P 500 eye weekly losses as sentiment was roiled this week following a hotter-than-anticipated inflation reading, which pushed traders to scale back their enthusiasm around the U.S. Federal Reserve cutting interest rates, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq was on track for its first weekly gain in three.

U.S. large-cap stocks suffered their largest weekly outflow since December 2022 in the week to Wednesday, Bank of America said.

The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 closed higher in the previous session as fresh economic data rekindled hopes that inflation remains in a cooling trend.

Money market participants see a more than 50% chance of the Fed bringing in the first interest rate cut in July, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

Focus would also be on remarks from Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid, Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic and their San Francisco counterpart Mary Daly later in the day for hints on the central bank's rate outlook.

On the data front, a preliminary reading of the University of Michigan's overall index of consumer sentiment for April is due at 10 a.m. ET.

At 4:34 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 67 points, or 0.17%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 1.75 points, or 0.03%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 13.5 points, or 0.07%.

Among individual stocks, data-center operator Applied Digital dropped 10.7% in premarket trading after reporting a bigger-than-expected quarterly loss.