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Paramount Global ( PARAA ) up after Skydance merger announcement

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Boeing ( BA ) rises after plea deal in 737 MAX probe

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Powell Congressional testimony on Tuesday and Wednesday

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Futures up: Dow 0.16%, S&P 500 0.08%, Nasdaq 0.05%

(Updated at 8:43 a.m. ET)

By Lisa Pauline Mattackal and Ankika Biswas

July 8 (Reuters) -

Wall Street's main indexes were on track for a listless open

on Monday, in a week packed with crucial inflation readings,

Congressional testimony from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell

and the start of the corporate earnings season.

Expectations for interest-rate cuts as early as

September received a boost after Friday's nonfarm payrolls

report showed U.S. job growth slowed in June, the latest data to

point to weakness in labor market conditions.

Investors, however, will seek clues for a clearer picture of

the Fed's likely monetary policy path for the year.

Traders now see a 69% chance of a 25-basis-point cut at the

Fed's September meeting, up from 60% a week ago, while expecting

an overall reduction of about 50 bps for the year, according to

CME's FedWatch and LSEG data.

On the economic front, Thursday's release of June's consumer

price index data will be closely watched to gauge whether price

pressures are easing.

"The fact of the matter is the Fed has a dual mandate and

their mandate is employment and inflation. Inflation is going

down and unemployment is going up," said Thomas Hayes, chairman

at Great Hill Capital LLC.

"They now have cover to make a cut when they want to and

signs point toward September."

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq continued to rally

on Friday, closing at all-time highs as megacap tech stocks such

as Meta Platforms ( META ) and Microsoft ( MSFT ) touched record

peaks.

Tesla fell 1.3% in premarket trading, after jumping

to its highest level this year on Friday, while Nvidia ( NVDA )

gained 0.7%.

Major banks including Citigroup ( C/PN ), JPMorgan Chase ( JPM )

and Wells Fargo ( WFC ) are scheduled to kick off the

second-quarter corporate earnings season on Friday.

Shares of JPMorgan ( JPM ) slipped 0.2% in premarket trading after

broad losses saw the S&P 500 banks index end Friday's

session down 1.6%.

Investors are focusing on earnings to see if a

stratospheric jump in shares of just a handful of megacap stocks

such as Nvidia ( NVDA ) can justify their pricey valuations.

Markets will also watch Powell's semi-annual testimony

before U.S. Senate and House committees on July 9 and 10

closely, as well as comments from several other Fed officials

through the week.

At 8:43 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 65 points, or

0.16%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 4.25 points, or 0.08%,

and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 11 points, or 0.05%.

Paramount Global ( PARAA ) rose 2.9% after Sunday's

announcement that the company would merge with Skydance Media,

which has offered $4.5 billion in cash or stock and an extra

$1.5 billion to shore up Paramount's balance sheet.

Planemaker Boeing gained nearly 1% after it agreed to

plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge and pay a

fine of $243.6 million, to resolve a U.S. Justice Department

investigation into two fatal 737 MAX crashes.

(Reporting by Lisa Mattackal and Ankika Biswas in Bengaluru;

Editing by Anil D'Silva and Pooja Desai)