Investing.com - U.S. futures pointed to gains on Wall Street at the open on Tuesday amid reports that China and the U.S. are moving ahead with trade talks.
The S&P 500 futures rose 17 points or 0.67% to 2,660.62 as of 6:40 AM ET (11:40 GMT) while Dow futures gained 174 points, or 0.71%, to 24,664. Meanwhile tech heavy Nasdaq 100 futures increased 64 points, or 0.96%, to 6,763.75.
Chinese Vice Premier Liu spoke to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in a call on Tuesday morning, China’s commerce ministry said.
Last week U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed pause adding additional tariffs on each other's goods for 90 days as trade talks commence.
Global markets are jittery about a growing clash between the world's two largest economic powers over China's huge trade surplus with the U.S. and Washington's claims that Beijing is stealing intellectual property and technology.
The arrest of a top executive at China's Huawei has also roiled global markets amid fears that it could further inflame the China-U.S. trade row.
AT&T (NYSE:T) was among the top gainers in premarket trading, rising 1.4%, while gaming company Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA) jumped 2.7% and Home Depot (NYSE:HD) inched up 0.9%. Semiconductor company AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) gained 1.7% and Micron (NASDAQ:MU) increased 1.1% while Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) was up 1.3%.
Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) fell 1.5% after JPMorgan downgraded the company, according to TheStreet. Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) was down 0.5% while Aurora Cannabis (NYSE:ACB) decreased 1.2%.
On the economic front, producer price data for November comes out at 8:30 AM ET (13:30 GMT). The numbers should give a better picture of the rate of inflation.
In commodities, gold futures rose 0.3% to $1,253.25 a troy ounce while crude oil futures increased 0.7% to $51.37 a barrel.
In currency markets, the U.S. dollar index which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was down 0.3% to 96.88.
-Reuters contributed to this report.