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Futures mixed: Dow and S&P 500 flat, Nasdaq down 0.23%

Sept 10 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures struggled

for direction on Tuesday ahead of a crucial consumer price

inflation report later in the week that could firm up bets on

the size of the interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve on

Sept. 18.

Apple's ( AAPL ) shares were down more than 1% in premarket

trading as Huawei's tri-fold smartphone upstaged Apple's ( AAPL ) launch

of its new series of iPhones and other products.

The iPhonemaker also lost its fight against an order by EU

competition regulators to pay 13 billion euros ($14.34 billion)

in back taxes to Ireland as part of an EU crackdown against

sweetheart deals between EU countries and multinationals.

Most other megacap and growth stocks were also trading

lower.

Wall Street's main indexes recorded gains of more than 1% on

Monday as investors looked for bargains following a week of

steep losses triggered by worries over the health of the U.S.

economy amid elevated interest rates.

This week's focus continues to be on the August inflation

reading on Wednesday that is likely to show a slight moderation

in the headline number to 2.6% on a year-on-year basis, while it

is expected to remain unchanged at 0.2% on month.

The producer prices report will be released on Thursday.

Money markets see a 73% chance of the U.S. central bank

cutting interest rates by 25 basis points and expect the Fed to

ease monetary policy by a total of 100 bps by the end of 2024,

according to CME's FedWatch Tool.

"The Fed is walking a tightrope. A bigger rate cut could

boost demand, but it also risks stoking inflation, especially if

wages continue to rise despite the lower number of job

openings," said Luca Santos, currency analyst at ACY Securities.

Later in the day, Philadelphia will be center stage when

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump meet in a highly anticipated

televised debate that could weigh heavily on the November

election. The two, who have never met in person, will square off

at 9 p.m. ET (0100 GMT) for a 90-minute debate hosted by ABC

News.

At 04:44 a.m., Dow E-minis were up 6 points, or

0.01%, Nasdaq 100 E-minis were down 42.5 points, or

0.23%, and S&P 500 E-minis were down 1.5 points, or

0.03%.

Among other movers, Oracle jumped 8.6% after

beating estimates for quarterly results and forecast

second-quarter revenue growth above expectations, boosted by

growing demand for its cloud offerings.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise ( HPE ) dropped 6% after the AI

server maker announced a $1.35 billion mandatory convertible

preferred stock offering to fund its acquisition of Juniper

Networks ( JNPR ).

($1 = 0.9065 euros)

(Reporting by Shubham Batra in Bengaluru)