(Reuters) -U.S. stock index futures were muted on Monday, kicking off a week where the Federal Reserve is expected to resume its interest rate cutting cycle.

The U.S. central bank is widely expected to ease its monetary policy by 25 basis points on Wednesday after a series of economic indicators pointed to a worsening jobs market in the world's biggest economy.

Investors are pricing in a total of 69.6 points in monetary policy easing by end-2025, data compiled by LSEG showed. That implies nearly three quarter-point cuts this year - one at the central bank's every remaining meeting.

"We do not think (Fed Chair) Jerome Powell this week would be more dovish than the current market pricing ... but the risk is that he puts more emphasis on inflation risks and the uncertainty around the tariff impact which would tamper market expectations of an overly dovish Fed," said Mohit Kumar, economist at Jefferies. 

Meanwhile, Nvidia fell 2.8% in premarket trading after China's market regulator said it will continue an investigation into the AI chip leader after preliminary finds showed it had violated the country's anti-monopoly law. This comes while representatives from the U.S. and China were engaged in trade talks in Madrid, Spain.

At 05:26 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 106 points, or 0.23%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 4.75 points, or 0.07% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were down 23 points, or 0.09%.

Wall Street's three main indexes had logged weekly gains in the previous session, with the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 hitting intraday record highs on Friday as technology-linked stocks remained resilient in a broadly declining market.

The indexes are in the positive territory so far in September, a month considered bad historically for U.S. equities. The benchmark S&P 500 has shed 1.5% on average in the month since 2000, data compiled by LSEG showed. 

Among the last datasets ahead of the Fed's September 16-17 meeting is a monthly reading of retail sales, due on Tuesday, that could offer some more insights on the health of the U.S. consumer, after a slightly hotter-than-expected inflation reading last week.

In other moves, Warner Bros Discovery tumbled 4.1% before the bell. A source said on Thursday that Paramount Skydance was preparing a bid for the Hollywood studio. Since then the stock has surged more than 50%.