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Weekly jobless claims data due at 8:30 a.m. ET

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Business activity surveys awaited at 9:45 a.m. ET

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Charles Schwab ( SCHW ) falls as TD Bank to trim stake

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Zoom gains on lifting FY revenue forecast

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Futures up: Dow 0.08%, S&P 500 0.17%, Nasdaq 0.28%

(Updated at 07:09 a.m. ET/1109 GMT)

By Shashwat Chauhan and Johann M Cherian

Aug 22 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures crept higher

on Thursday, as sentiment remained upbeat about the Federal

Reserve possibly kicking off its policy easing cycle next month,

while investors awaited policymakers' commentary at Jackson Hole

this week.

Expectations of a rate cut got a boost after minutes from

the U.S. central bank's latest meeting showed on Wednesday a

"vast majority" of officials said such an action was likely.

The July policy meeting occurred before a disappointing

employment report for that month and a host of other reports

that pointed to cooling inflation and a softening but resilient

economy.

"The minutes are backward-looking but confirm the soft

(dovish) signals from Fed Chair Powell after the meeting," noted

Elisabet Kopelman, U.S. economist at banking group SEB.

"These plans should have received further support from weak

data since the July meeting, and we expect Powell to send a

clear signal on this in his speech in Jackson Hole tomorrow."

The much-awaited Jackson Hole Economic Symposium kicks off

later in the day. Fed chair Powell is slated to deliver his

remarks on Friday.

Money markets currently see a nearly 70% chance of an at

least 25-basis-point (bps) cut in September, as per the CME

FedWatch Tool, and about 100 bps of easing by December,

according to LSEG data.

Wall Street's main indexes closed slightly higher in the

previous session, with the S&P 500 notching its ninth

session of gains out of 10 and now sitting less than 1% away

from its all-time highs seen in July.

A weekly reading of U.S. jobless claims is due at 8:30 a.m

ET, and preliminary estimates of August U.S. business activity

are due at 9:45 a.m. ET.

At 07:09 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 33 points, or

0.08%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 9.75 points, or 0.17% and

Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 55 points, or 0.28%.

Among individual stocks, data cloud analytics firm Snowflake

raised its forecast for full-year product revenue.

Still, Snowflake's shares were down 9.6% in premarket trading,

with analysts attributing the drop to the company not pairing

the climb in revenue projections with a rise in margin forecast.

Paramount Global ( PARAA ) gained 2.5% after a source told

Reuters that veteran media executive Edgar Bronfman has

sweetened his bid to take over the company, offering $6 billion

for its controlling shareholder National Amusements and a

minority stake in Paramount.

Shares of Charles Schwab ( SCHW ) were down 4.2% after

Canada's TD Bank Group said it would sell part of its

stake in the brokerage firm.

Zoom Video Communications ( ZM ) added 2.6% after raising

its annual revenue forecast, driven by strong demand for its

AI-powered collaboration tools deployed in hybrid work models,

while Advanced Auto Parts slid 11.5% after trimming its

annual profit forecast.

(Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan and Johann M Cherian in

Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Shinjini

Ganguli)