Futures rise after signs of progress in trade talks with China

U.S. stock index futures rose on Friday on signs of progress in the ongoing trade talks between the United States and China. After several rounds of high-level discussions between the two countries, President Donald Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He are expected to meet at the Oval Office later in the day. Officials haggled over some of the toughest issues in their trade war, with little more than a week left before a Washington-imposed deadline expires, triggering higher tariffs.

"It would appear that there's been some real progress made in the talks, at least enough to extend the truce and avoid further tariff hikes," Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda in London, wrote in a note. A batch of grim economic data on Thursday, including a surprise fall in new orders for key U.S.-made capital goods, halted the benchmark S&P 500 index's recent run of gains. However, the index is still at more than two-month highs.

At 7:05 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 124 points, or 0.48 per cent. S&P 500 e-minis were up 11.25 points, or 0.41 per cent and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 40 points, or 0.57 per cent. Shares of tariff-exposed companies such as Boeing Co rose 0.5 per cent and Caterpillar Inc 0.7 per cent in premarket trading.

Kraft Heinz Co shares slumped 19.8 per cent after the company posted a quarterly loss, disclosed an SEC probe and wrote down the value of its iconic Kraft and Oscar Mayer brands. Shares of rivals General Mills, Conagra Brands and Kellogg Co fell between 2 per cent and 4 per cent.

Intel Corp was up 2.9 per cent after Morgan Stanley lifted its rating to "overweight," citing the chipmaker's appointment of a new CEO. Newmont Mining Corp rose 3.1 per cent after a report that Canada's Barrick Gold Corp was considering a hostile bid for the company for about $19 billion.