May 8 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures were set for a lower open on Wednesday following a weak forecast from Uber and a rebound in bond yields as investors sought more clarity on the Federal Reserve's plans for interest rate cuts.
Uber (UBER.N), opens new tab lost 7% premarket after the ride-hailing platform forecast second-quarter gross bookings below expectations.
Megacap stocks also fell, with Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab, Amazon.com (AMZN.O), opens new tab and Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab down between 0.6% and 1.7%, following a rise in the 10-year Treasury yield after five days of declines.
This comes after the S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab closed higher for a fourth straight session on Tuesday, its best winning run since March, while the blue-chip Dow (.DJI), opens new tab scored a fifth session of gain in its longest positive run since December 2023.
Markets have mostly traded higher so far in May, as investors took comfort from an upbeat earnings season as well as a recent softer-than-expected labor market report, which tempered concerns about the Fed keeping interest rates higher for longer.
Traders are pricing in a 65% chance of the U.S. central bank cutting interest rates by at least 25 basis points in September, according to the CME Group's Fedwatch tool, up from about 54% a week ago.
"The market has now priced in the Fed's move for the rest of the year, so the reaction function will be lower moving forward and investors will start to focus more on the economic and earnings backdrop," said Dylan Kremer, chief investment officer at Certuity.
"The bond yields aren't necessarily reflecting the expected Fed activity..and that's primarily due to still resilient growth."
Investors will closely monitor comments from Fed speakers -- Vice Chair Philip Jefferson, Boston President Susan Collins and Governor Lisa Cook during the day -- for fresh clues on the central bank's monetary easing plans.
With the earnings season at its tail-end and only a few economic reports expected this week, markets are now awaiting next week's consumer prices reading to gauge if inflation is cooling.
Overall, the first-quarter earnings have been much better than expected. Of the 424 S&P 500 companies that reported through Tuesday, nearly 78% topped analysts' estimates, according to LSEG data. In a typical quarter, 67% beat estimates.
At 07:24 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were down 23 points, or 0.06%, S&P 500 E-minis were down 8.5 points, or 0.16% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were down 36 points, or 0.2%.
Uber rival Lyft (LYFT.O), opens new tab climbed 5.1% after projecting higher-than-expected gross bookings and a core profit for the current quarter.
Reddit (RDDT.N), opens new tab climbed nearly 12.3% after the social media platform said it could post an adjusted profit in the second quarter, thanks to its booming advertising business and content-licensing deals with AI companies.
Rivian (RIVN.O), opens new tab slid 5.3% after the electric-pickup truck maker stuck to a 2024 production forecast that was well below Wall Street targets and reported a wider-than-expected first-quarter loss.
Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Shristi Achar A in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli
