(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures gained on Thursday, with an upbeat forecast from TSMC lifting semiconductor stocks, while investors awaited key economic data for clues on the financial health of the U.S. consumer.
Profit at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world's largest contract chipmaker, beat market estimates and the company forecast a jump in fourth-quarter revenue, driven by demand for artificial intelligence chips.
The chipmaker's U.S. listed shares soared 8% in premarket trading, while AI-trade favorite Nvidia gained 2.4%.
Broadcom rose 2.3%, Intel gained 1.3% and Arm Holdings was 3.7% higher.
Stocks had advanced in Wednesday's session, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average notching up its third record close in four sessions, as declines in megacap tech stocks were offset by a rally in small-cap and financial shares.
Futures tracking the small-cap Russell 2000 were slightly higher, up 0.1%, after the index closed at its highest level in nearly three years.
Megacap stocks rose after broad declines in the previous session, with Apple up 0.7% and Alphabet rising 0.6%.
Focus now turns to the U.S. economic outlook, with September retail sales and industrial production, as well as weekly jobless claims data due on the day.
"Growth indicators in the US are now being closely monitored by the market and in terms of retail sales, a slight recovery is expected in September after sales slowed in August," analysts at SEB Research said in a note.
Dow E-minis were up 35 points, or 0.08%, U.S. S&P 500 E-minis were up 22.75 points, or 0.39%, Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 146.5 points, or 0.72%.
Another busy day of corporate earnings lies ahead, with streaming giant Netflix scheduled to report third-quarter earnings after the bell. Its shares rose 0.5% in premarket trading.
A broadly upbeat start to the third-quarter earnings season, on the heels of strong economic data and the U.S. Federal Reserve kicking off its policy-easing cycle, injected fresh optimism into equity markets, propelling the benchmark index to fresh record highs.
Still, analysts have flagged increasingly stretched valuations, high expectations for earnings and likely volatility ahead of November's U.S. presidential election as risk factors through the end of the year.
Huntington Bancshares and insurer Travelers Companies are among the companies whose results are expected before market open.
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee is also scheduled to speak later in the day.
The Fed is still widely expected to trim rates by 25 basis points at its next meeting in November, according to CME's FedWatch.
(Reporting by Lisa Mattackal in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)