June 4 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures nudged higher on Wednesday as Hewlett Packard Enterprise's results fanned AI optimism and some tech shares gained, while investors awaited fresh data to better gauge the economic fallout of President Donald Trump's tariffs.
Shares of HPE (HPE.N), rose 5.7% in premarket trading as demand for the company's artificial-intelligence servers and hybrid cloud segment helped it beat estimates for second-quarter revenue and profit.
AI chip leader Nvidia (NVDA.O), edged up 0.7%, extending gains from earlier this week. Other chipmakers including Broadcom (AVGO.O), and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O), also moved higher.
A gauge of global stocks (.MIWD00000PUS), touched record highs despite uncertainty around U.S. trade policies.
Washington doubled tariffs on imported steel and aluminum to 50% on Wednesday, the same day by which Trump had wanted trading partners to make their best offers to avoid other punishing import levies from taking effect in early July.
Investor focus is squarely on tariff negotiations between Washington and its trading partners, with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping expected to speak sometime this week as tensions between the world's top two economies simmer.
"All eyes are on China given it is currently the biggest loser from Trump's new trade policy, and it looks like we're still some way off from a deal between the two countries," said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.
At 07:10 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 65 points, or 0.15%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 11 points, or 0.18%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 37.5 points, or 0.17%.
May was the best month for the S&P 500 index (.SPX), and the tech-heavy Nasdaq (.IXIC), since November 2023, thanks to a softening of Trump's harsh trade stance.
With fresh tariff announcements in place, the S&P 500 remains about 3% away from its record highs touched in February.
Barclays joined a slew of other brokerages in raising its year-end price target for the S&P 500, pointing to easing trade uncertainty and expectations of normalized earnings growth in 2026.
Data releases scheduled for Wednesday include ADP National Employment numbers for May as well as S&P Global and ISM's services sector activity readings for May.
Ahead of a U.S. central bank meeting next week, monthly jobs data due on Friday will likely offer more signs on how trade uncertainty is affecting the U.S. economy.
Among other early movers, Wells Fargo (WFC.N), shares rose 2.9% after the U.S. Federal Reserve removed a $1.95 trillion asset cap imposed in 2018 following years of missteps.
Shares of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike (CRWD.O), fell 7.2% after it forecast quarterly revenue below estimates.
Apple (AAPL.O), nudged 0.6% lower after brokerage Needham downgraded the iPhone maker to "hold" from "buy".
Dollar Tree (DLTR.O), fell 3.8% after the discount store operator forecast second-quarter adjusted profit would be as much as 50% lower than a year ago due to tariff-driven volatility.
Reporting by Kanchana Chakravarty and Sukriti Gupta in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath
