US STOCKS-S&P 500, Dow futures rise on rate-pause hopes; chip equipment, auto stocks drag

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Updated at 7:10 a.m. ET/ 1110 GMT

By Ankika Biswas and Shristi Achar A

Sept 15 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and Dow futures rose on Friday as investors remained optimistic about a likely pause in U.S. interest-rate hikes, while chip-equipment firms and automakers dropped in premarket trading.

Applied Materials AMAT.O, Lam Research LRCX.O and KLA Corp KLAC.O fell 2% each after Reuters reported Taiwan's TSMC 2330.TW, the world's top chipmaker, had asked vendors to delay delivery of high-end chipmaking equipment, weighing down Nasdaq futures.

Automakers Ford Motor F.N and General Motors GM.N shed 1.2% and 1.9%, respectively, after the United Auto Workers union launched simultaneous strikes at three factories owned by the "Detroit Three", including Chrysler-owner Stellantis STLAM.MI, marking the most ambitious U.S. industrial labor action in decades.

SoftBank's Arm Holdings ARM.O gained 6.5% after a stellar Nasdaq debut on Thursday, rekindling hopes of a turnaround in the initial public offering (IPO) market.

"Move aside Nvidia, there's a player in town and its is Arm," said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.

"When a stock goes up 25% in a day, there will be FOMO among investors – fear of missing out. That might explain why its shares look like they will jump again today."

Arm's strong debut prompted grocery delivery app Instacart to raise the proposed price range for its IPO to target a fully diluted valuation of up to $10 billion.

Investors are also focused on Neumora Therapeutics' NMRA.O debut later in the day after the SoftBank-backed firm raised $250 mln in its U.S. IPO.

Wall Street's main indexes gained on Thursday after hotter-than-expected economic data eased worries about a recession without raising fears of a U.S. interest rate hike week.

Traders' bets on the Federal Reserve holding rates steady in its Sept. 20 policy meeting remained intact at 97%, while their odds for a pause in November stood at 65%, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

Investors will monitor August industrial production and the University of Michigan's preliminary reading of consumer sentiment due later in the day.

Upbeat data on China's factory output and retail sales in August bolstered market sentiment, as it suggested that a flurry of recent measures to shore up the world's second-largest economy were starting to bear fruit.

U.S.-listed shares of Alibaba Group Holdings BABA.K, JD.com JD.O, PDD Holdings PDD.O and Xpeng XPEV.N rose between 0.1% and 1.6%.

At 7:10 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were up 85 points, or 0.24%, S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were up 6 points, or 0.13%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were down 4.5 points, or 0.03%.

(Reporting by Ankika Biswas and Shristi Achar A in Bengaluru
Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)

((Ankika.Biswas@thomsonreuters.com;
Shristi.AcharA@thomsonreuters.com
https://twitter.com/ShristiAchar;))