08:50 AM EDT, 05/23/2024 (MT Newswires) -- US equity futures were set for an upbeat open on Wall Street Thursday, buoyed by a jump in Nvidia ( NVDA ) shares following the company's latest quarterly results.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures gained 0.2%, S&P 500 futures rose 0.7%, and Nasdaq futures were up 1.2%.

Oil prices were higher, with front-month global benchmarks North Sea Brent crude and US West Texas Intermediate crude up around 0.8%.

New unemployment claims, released at 8:30 am ET, fell to 215,000 in the week ended May 18 from 223,000 in the preceding week, compared with estimates compiled by Bloomberg for a smaller drop to 220,000 claims.

The manufacturing Purchasing Managers' index, slated for 9:45 am ET, is seen unchanged at 50.0 in May.

New home sales, due at 10 am ET, are expected to fall to a 677,000 annual rate in April from 693,000 in March.

In other world markets, Japan's Nikkei closed 1.3% higher, Hong Kong's Hang Seng ended 1.7% lower, and China's Shanghai Composite finished 1.3% lower. Meanwhile, the UK's FTSE 100 gained 0.02%, and Germany's DAX index increased 0.3% in Europe's early afternoon session.

In equities, shares of Nvidia ( NVDA ) were 7% higher pre-bell after the accelerated computing company reported stronger-than-expected Q1 results and issued upbeat guidance. Dell Technologies ( DELL ) shares rose 6.6% after the company formed a partnership with Ericsson (ERIC) to boost telecom network cloud transformation.

On the losing side, Cytokinetics ( CYTK ) stock was 14% lower after the company overnight priced a $500 million stock offering. VF Corp. (VFC) shares were down 14% after the company late Wednesday reported it swung to a fiscal Q4 adjusted loss on lower revenue.