Wall St set for subdued open in run-up to employment revision figures

Wall Street futures pointed to a slightly higher open on Tuesday, a day after major U.S. indexes closed near record peaks, as investors remained cautious ahead of an impending employment rate revision.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to release a preliminary estimate of the nonfarm payrolls benchmark at 10 a.m. ET, with economists predicting that the level of U.S. employment for the 12 months through March could be slashed by as much as a million jobs.

Recent labor market indicators have already cast shadows of concern across the minds of investors and Federal Reserve officials alike, with nonfarm payroll data for July and August confirming weakening labor market conditions.

The latest report has led traders to fully price in a 25-basis-point reduction in interest rates next week, while bets also surfaced for a larger 50-bps trim, which stand at 8%, according to CME's FedWatch tool.

"Given the recent softness in the labor market data, even if we were to see elevated inflation data this week, the Fed would cut rates next week," said Chris Kampitsis, managing partner at Barnum Financial Group.

"But that would be a 'one and done' rate cut, especially if inflation data remains elevated in the near-term."

At 8:26 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 35 points, or 0.08%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 6 points, or 0.09% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 44.5 points, or 0.19%.

Meanwhile, Nebius soared about 54% in premarket trading after the AI infrastructure firm signed a $17.4-billion deal with Microsoft. Rival CoreWeave also rose 6.6%.

Inflation reports due this week will also be on investors' radar to gauge the impact of President Donald Trump's tariff policies on the U.S. economy, and whether a case could be made for a bigger rate cut.

The three main indexes finished Monday's session on a higher note, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq closing at a record, lifted by a rally in chip major Broadcom.

Wall Street has had a broadly positive start to September, a month deemed historically bad for U.S. equities, with the benchmark index losing 1.5% on average since 2000, data compiled by LSEG showed.

In other stocks, UnitedHealth gained 3.9% before the bell after the health insurer said it expects enrollment in top-rated Medicare insurance plans to be in line with its expectations.

U.S.-listed shares of Teck Resources jumped 18.2% after the miner agreed to merge with London-listed Anglo American on Tuesday.

Tourmaline Bio jumped more than 58% after Swiss pharma giant Novartis said it would acquire the biopharmaceutical company for $1.4 billion.

Class B shares of Fox Corp and News Corp dipped 5.4% and 4.8% respectively. Rupert Murdoch and his children reached an agreement that will give the eldest son Lachlan Murdoch control over the media empire.

(Reporting by Purvi Agarwal and Ragini Mathur in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai and Maju Samuel)