Investing.com – U.S. futures pointed to an upbeat opening bell as investors turned their focus to a fresh round of trade talks between the U.S. and China.
Meetings kick off on Monday, with higher-level talks taking place Thursday and Friday.
Washington and Beijing officials are trying to make a deal ahead of the March 1 deadline when U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports are due to increase from 10% to 25%.
Chinese officials issued upbeat statements at the weekend, but U.S. President Donald Trump's comments last week that he probably wouldn't meet with counterpart Xi Jinping ahead of the March deadline are still setting the tone.
The S&P 500 futures rose 6 points or 0.24% as of 6:41 AM ET (11:41 GMT) while Dow futures gained 62 points or 0.25% and tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures increased 22 points or 0.33%.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) rose 2.5% in premarket trading, while General Electric (NYSE:GE) increased 1% and Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) inched up 0.4%. Twitter gained 1.2% and Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) was up 0.75% after its film “Roma” won best film and best director in the Bafta Awards in London on Sunday, increasing its chance of an Oscar.
Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) jumped 2.4% on the back of Friday’s announcement that its game “Apex Legends” attracted 10 million players in 72 hours.
Elsewhere, Overstock.com Inc (NASDAQ:OSTK) fell 4% and semiconductor company Micron (NASDAQ:MU) slipped 1.37%.
Meanwhile, political tensions will be in focus as Democratic and Republican lawmakers struggle over immigration policy as they try to avert another U.S. government shutdown this month.
It is also the last big week of earnings, with results from Lowe’s (NYSE:LOW) Corp., Chegg (NYSE:CHGG) and others on Monday.
In commodities, gold futures slipped 0.55% $1,311.25 a troy ounce, while crude oil fell 0.72% to $52.34 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, rose 0.11% to a two-month high of 96.523.