US STOCKS-Wall St to open higher on oil retreat, tech optimism

By Shashwat Chauhan and Tharuniyaa Lakshmi

Sept 29 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes were set to open higher on Tuesday, helped by a pullback in oil prices, while media reports of the details about Anthropic's public offering also bolstered sentiment towards technology stocks.

Brent crude futures dipped more than 1% as focus remained on supply from the Middle East despite lingering concerns about disruption brought about by the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Tech stocks ticked higher after Anthropic's IPO prospectus, as seen by Reuters, showed how the AI lab has grown sharply in the last year — while also posting wider losses.

Anthropic is targeting a valuation of more than $2 trillion in a public offering, possibly establishing it as a benchmark for how Wall Street values AI's leading companies.

"The market is in somewhat of a show-me phase. Earnings growth has been phenomenal, but expectations are extremely high and a lot of the good news is already priced into stocks," said Newton Jones, executive managing director at Zizmer-Jones Private Wealth Management Group at Steward Partners.

Most chip-related companies rose in premarket trading after a sector-wide selloff on Monday. Marvell Technology MRVL.O, Micron Technology MU.O and Broadcom AVGO.O all rose around 1% each.

Nvidia NVDA.O inched 0.7% higher, building on Monday's gains when the world's most valuable company boosted its share buyback authorization by a record $150 billion.

The AI theme, which has powered most of the bull run that started in October 2022, remains crucial. Remarks from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during the company's DevDay event later in the day would be on investors' radar.

At 8:45 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 90 points, or 0.17%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 10.75 points, or 0.14%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 84.5 points, or 0.28%.

The S&P 500 .SPX clocked its biggest one-day percentage fall since late August on Monday as tech stocks came under pressure amid geopolitical uncertainty.

Economic data has garnered more scrutiny lately as the Federal Reserve has dialed back commentary on future policy moves under Chair Kevin Warsh. Traders currently see a 70% chance of another interest rate hike in October, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

"The economy remains relatively strong. Inflation is very embedded and the forward-looking data continue to look firm, which limits policymakers' flexibility," Jones added.

A job-openings reading for August is due later in the day, the first of many economic data points scheduled to be released this week. At least six Fed officials, including New York Fed President John Williams, are set to speak throughout the day on Tuesday.

Among other movers, Summit Therapeutics SMMT.O leaped 20.1%. The biopharma firm said British drugmaker AstraZeneca AZN.L would invest $2 billion in it and collaborate on a series of studies testing their cancer treatments together.

Snacks and soda giant PepsiCo PEP.O dipped 1.1% after J.P.Morgan downgraded the stock to "neutral" from "overweight".