U.S. stocks looked set to resume their recent rally on rising optimism over President Donald Trump`s proposed tax overhaul.
Hopes of tax reforms brightened after the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday approved a fiscal 2018 spending blueprint to help them advance an eventual tax bill.
"It appears that we have some investors follow-through with optimism on tax cuts and there was no bad news on geopolitical front," said Andre Bakhos, managing director at Janlyn Capital LLC in Bernardsville, New Jersey.
"Given where we in the market cycle, any stress in earnings or conveyed by companies could become a speed bump."
Two of the biggest banks - JPMorgan Chase and Citi - kick off the quarterly results season proper on Thursday.
Earnings are expected to have increased 4.9 percent in the third quarter, according to Thomson Reuters data, down from double-digit growth in the first two quarters of this year.
Weak jobs numbers halted an eight-day winning streak for the S&P 500 on Friday, but the Nasdaq ended up for a ninth straight day.
Chalking up employment losses last month to the temporary hit of a severe hurricane season and reiterating expectations that inflation will strengthen, Federal Reserve policymakers on Friday signaled they still expected U.S. interest-rates to rise gradually.
Traders now see an 86.7 percent chance of a rate hike in December, according to CME Group`s Fedwatch tool.
At 8:37 a.m. ET (1237 GMT), Dow e-minis were up 43 points, or 0.19 percent, with 15,346 contracts changing hands.
S&P 500 e-minis were up 4 points, or 0.16 percent, with 101,621 contracts traded.
Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 15.75 points, or 0.26 percent, on volume of 18,878 contracts.
Investors looked largely to be shrugging off the latest exchange of words between Washington and North Korea.
North Korea`s leader Kim Jong Un said his nuclear weapons were a "powerful deterrent" that guaranteed its sovereignty, state media reported on Sunday, hours after U.S. President Donald Trump said "only one thing will work" in dealing with the isolated country.
The U.S. bond market is closed for the Columbus Day holiday.
Among stocks, Tesla was down 1.51 percent in premarket hours after Chief Executive Elon Musk said the company had pushed back the unveiling of the big rig truck until mid-November.
Viacom slipped 3.31 percent after Citigroup downgraded the media company`s stock to "sell" and slashed its price target by $9 to $24.
Medtronic dropped 2.64 percent after the medical device maker said its second quarter 2018 earnings would take a hit from hurricane Maria.
(This article has not been edited by Zeebiz editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)
06:37 PM IST