07:35 AM EDT, 09/19/2025 (MT Newswires) -- The benchmark US stock measures mostly edged higher before Friday's open as traders await a highly anticipated call between President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.

The S&P 500 was slightly in the green and the Nasdaq ticked up 0.1% in premarket activity, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was marginally in the red. The indexes notched fresh all-time highs on Thursday.

Trump's call with Xi is reportedly scheduled to take place at 9 am ET. Trump told reporters on Thursday that a deal for short-video app TikTok is nearly completed, and that he expected to discuss a number of other issues with his Chinese counterpart, including tariffs.

"We may do an extension with China, but it's an extension based on the same terms that we have right now, which are pretty good terms," Trump said, according to media reports. In August, the US leader signed an executive order to continue the suspension of heightened tariffs on China for another 90 days.

US and Chinese officials recently held a trade meeting in Spain, which Trump described on social media as having gone "very well."

Treasury yields were trending upwards in premarket action, with the two-year rate rising 1.2 basis points to 3.58% and the 10-year rate adding 2.5 basis points to 4.13%.

Applications for unemployment insurance in the US declined more than expected last week, dropping from a nearly four-year high reached in the week prior, government data showed Thursday. "Sorting through the noise, initial claims are still consistent with a relatively low pace of layoffs," Oxford Economics Lead US Economist Nancy Vanden Houten said in remarks emailed to MT Newswires.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve reduced its benchmark lending rate by 25 basis points, noting increased downside risks to employment and signaling further policy easing later in 2025.

San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly is scheduled to speak at 2:30 pm.

Shares of Intel ( INTC ) decreased 0.8% pre-bell after closing Thursday up 23%, as technology giant Nvidia ( NVDA ) agreed to invest $5 billion in the chipmaker and jointly develop new data centers and personal computer chips. Nvidia ( NVDA ) nudged down 0.2%.

FedEx ( FDX ) gained 5.6% as the parcel delivery giant's fiscal first-quarter results rose more than expected, buoyed by domestic package revenue gains and cost reductions. Lennar ( LEN ) dropped 2.8% as the homebuilder issued a fiscal fourth-quarter delivery outlook below market estimates and reported weaker-than-expected results in the prior three-month period.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil fell 0.6% to $63.22 a barrel before the opening bell. Friday's thin economic calendar has the weekly Baker Hughes oil-and-gas rig count at 1 pm.

Gold inclined 0.3% to $3,689 per troy ounce, while bitcoin slipped 0.8% to $116,566.