Stock futures sluggish; eyes on tax bill talks and General Electric

(Reuters) - U.S. stock futures pointed to a dull opening on Thursday with technology stocks holding on to their modest gains as traders focus on progress in tax bill negotiations and General Electric’s job-cut plan clinique fresh pressed.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., December 6, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
- GE (GE.N) shares rose 0.6 percent to $17.76 in premarket trading after the struggling industrial conglomerate said it was axing 12,000 jobs at its global power business.


Shares of tech giants Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), Facebook Inc (FB.O), Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) were up about 0.3 percent to 0.6 percent.
- Other early movers include Broadcom (AVGO.O), which gained 5 percent after reporting upbeat profit and boosting its dividend by 72 percent, days after the chipmaker took its $103 billion bid for Qualcomm (QCOM.O) hostile clinique vitamin c .


 Lululemon Athletica (LULU.O) rose about 8 percent after the Canadian yoga and leisure apparel maker reported a higher-than-expected profit and gave an upbeat holiday-quarter forecast.
- U.S. Senate Republicans on Wednesday agreed to talks with the House of Representatives on the tax bill on Wednesday, amid early signs that lawmakers could agree on a final bill ahead of a self-imposed Dec. 22 deadline.
- However, a gridlock between President Donald Trump and Congress over the passage of fresh spending legislation before Friday has raised fears of partial shut down of the federal government.

 Oil prices rose more than half a percent after dipping 2 percent on Wednesday as a fall in U.S. crude inventories was countered by soaring output and a rise in fuel stocks. [O/R]
- Data is expected to show weekly initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose to 240,000 from 238,000 in the week before. The report is due 8:30 a.m. ET (1330 GMT).
Futures snapshot at 6:51 a.m. ET clinique fresh pressed :
- Dow e-minis 1YMc1 were down 13 points, or 0.05 percent, with 19,224 contracts changing hands.
- S&P 500 e-minis ESc1 were up 1.5 points, or 0.06 percent, with 122,705 contracts traded.
- Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQc1 were up 15.75 points, or 0.25 percent, on volume of 29,337 contracts.
Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Rama Venkat Raman in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.