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Futures down: Dow 0.01%, S&P 500 0.05%, Nasdaq 0.08%

Oct 9 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures dipped on

Thursday, with investors awaiting Federal Reserve Chair Jerome

Powell's comments to gauge whether the central bank is leaning

more towards preventing inflation or protecting the labor

market.

Minutes from the Fed's September meeting showed lingering

inflation concerns, potentially complicating the path to the

aggressive interest-rate cuts markets have already priced in.

"Central bankers are still paying lip service to their

inflation mandates," said Kyle Rodda, senior financial market

analyst at Capital.com.

Any hint of a hawkish tilt from Powell could weigh on

equities, which have held strong even during a seasonally weak

stretch partly on expectations of lower rates.

"Investors who have held their nerve are cleaning up, yet

the drums of worry are banging louder each day," said Russ

Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.

At 05:10 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 7 points, or

0.01%, U.S. S&P 500 E-minis dipped 3.25 points, or

0.05%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis fell 21 points, or 0.08%.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq and the benchmark S&P 500

indexes hit all-time closing highs on Wednesday.

Markets will lean heavily on other Fed speakers as well,

including Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, Board

Governor Michael Barr and San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly.

A quiet economic calendar will also put the spotlight on

earnings from PepsiCo ( PEP ) and Delta Air Lines ( DAL ), whose

forecasts and executive commentary will be parsed for insights

on consumer confidence.

These indicators are expected to be used as substitutes for

official releases, which have been halted due to the government

shutdown, now in its second week.

While their correlation with official data varies, some of

these proxies have shown worrying trends. Earlier this week,

investment firm Carlyle estimated that U.S. employers

added just 17,000 jobs last month, far below the 54,000

economists polled by Reuters had expected in the nonfarm

payrolls report.

Separately, spot gold prices held above $4,000 an ounce,

after breaching the milestone for the first time earlier this

week. Their gains have shown the strong demand for hedging even

as investors chase momentum in equities.

Among stocks, Tesla was 1% lower in premarket

trading, while Nvidia ( NVDA ) inched up 0.9%.

Roundhill Meme Stock ETF, which was re-launched on

Wednesday after being shuttered for two years, surged 22.8%.

Costco Wholesale ( COST ) rose 1.4%, a day after reporting

sales data for September.

(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika

Syamnath)