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Futures: Dow down 0.04%, S&P 500 up 0.22%, Nasdaq up 0.32%

Aug 1 (Reuters) - Futures for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq

rose modestly on Thursday, boosted by the U.S. Federal Reserve's

signals of a September interest-rate cut and a rosy sales

forecast from Meta, but a pullback in some megacap and chip

stocks capped gains.

Meta Platforms ( META ) soared 7% in premarket trading after

a second-quarter revenue beat and an upbeat third-quarter sales

forecast pointed to the possibility that its artificial

intelligence costs would be covered.

"Meta has bought the AI theme some time... investors are

willing to overlook increased capital expenditure, as long as

revenue growth remains strong," said Kathleen Brooks, research

director for XTB.

The Facebook-owner's quarterly results were the first among

the "Magnificent Seven" group of companies to enthuse investors,

allaying some concerns around AI spending following dismal

earnings from Alphabet and Microsoft ( MSFT ) last

month.

Wall Street has been on tenterhooks, looking for signs that

the tech behemoths can hold on to their bumper gains after

steering the U.S. equity market to record highs this year on AI

euphoria and hopes of early rate cuts.

Premarket trends in megacaps were largely mixed after

Wednesday's rally, with Apple ( AAPL ) and Amazon.com ( AMZN )

gaining 0.5% and 0.9%, respectively, ahead of their results,

which are due after markets close. Alphabet and Tesla

were down 0.1% and 0.6%, respectively.

AI-trade favorite Nvidia ( NVDA ) rose 0.60%, a day after

adding about $330 billion to its market value, a record one-day

gain for any Wall Street company.

At 5:23 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 18 points,

or 0.04%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 12.5 points, or 0.22%,

and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 62.25 points, or 0.32%.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq scored their biggest one-day

gains since Feb. 22 on Wednesday, after Fed Chair Jerome Powell

offered the stock market what it has been seeking - a likely

pivot to policy easing in September, with inflation on track to

finish the journey to 2% without undue damage to the labor

market.

However, as the prospect of rate cuts gained traction,

investors are now trying to gauge if the central bank will be

able to ease policy at a pace consistent with achieving the much

awaited "soft landing" for the economy.

Futures tracking the Russell 2000 also rose 0.5%

after the small-cap index logged its biggest monthly gain

in July since the start of 2024, on hopes that mid- and

small-cap companies will benefit from a low-interest-rate

environment.

Economic data including weekly jobless claims and

manufacturing PMIs, due through the day, is at the top of

investors' watch list.

Most chip stocks retreated after Wednesday's rally saw the

Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index log its best one-day

gain of 7% since November 2022.

Arm Holdings slumped 10.7% following a conservative

revenue forecast, while Qualcomm ( QCOM ) lost 1.9% on flagging

a revenue hit after the U.S. revoked one of its export licenses

for sanctioned Chinese telecom firm Huawei.

Western Digital Corp ( WDC ) dropped 6.2% after forecasting

first-quarter revenue below estimates.

Of the 283 S&P 500 companies that have reported

second-quarter earnings till date, 78.4% beat expectations, LSEG

data showed.