US STOCKS-Futures slightly higher ahead of Citi results

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* Futures up: Dow 0.14%, S&P 0.14%, Nasdaq 0.10%

By Medha Singh
July 15 (Reuters) - U.S. stock futures extended last week's
gains to trade slightly higher on Monday in the run up to the
start of second-quarter earnings reports, beginning with
Citigroup.
Shares of the U.S. lender were up 0.7% in premarket trade.
It will report results at around 8 a.m. ET and will be followed
by other Wall Street big banks such as JPMorgan JPM.N , Goldman
Sachs GS.N and Wells Fargo WFC.N on Tuesday.
As companies start reporting quarterly results, investors
will look for the impact of the long-drawn U.S.-China trade
dispute on corporate profit.
Other companies slated for this week include Bank of America
Corp BAC.N , Netflix Inc NFLX.O , Microsoft Corp MSFT.O and
Honeywell International Inc HON.N .
Profits from S&P 500 companies is expected to dip 0.4%
year-over-year, the first quarterly decline in three years,
according to Refinitiv IBES data.
Last week, gains in stocks were powered by comments from
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell that reassured investors
that an interest rate cut was highly likely at the central
bank's policy meeting later this month.
The S&P 500 .SPX closed above 3,000 points for the first
time on Friday as investors rebuilt their bets of a sharp 50
basis-point rate cut in the July 30-31 meeting.
Also helping the mood was upbeat data out of China.
Quarterly growth at the world's second largest economy beat
analysts' forecasts, while June reports on industrial
production, retail sales and urban investment were also well
above expectations. At 6:53 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were up 39 points, or
0.14%. S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were up 4.25 points, or 0.14% and
Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were up 8 points, or 0.1%.
Among stocks, Boeing Co BA.N fell 1.4% after a report that
its 737 Max jet may stay grounded until early 2020 as the
company seeks to fix its hazardous flight-control software.
General Electric Co GE.N slipped marginally after
brokerage UBS downgraded shares of the industrial conglomerate
to "neutral" from "buy", according to traders.
Shares of paper packaging companies Westrock Co WRK.N ,
Packaging Corp of America PKG.N and International Paper Co
IP.N fell between 3.3% and 2.4% and were the top losers on the
benchmark index before the bell.
KeyBanc downgraded their shares, citing risks from a further
fall in containerboard and pulp prices.