US STOCKS-Futures cheer vaccine roll-out as travel stocks rally

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* Futures up: Dow 0.80%, S&P 0.74%, Nasdaq 0.50%

By Ambar Warrick
Dec 14 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures rose on Monday
as travel stocks surged on the launch of a nationwide COVID-19
vaccine campaign, while investors held out hope for more local
stimulus as bipartisan talks continued.
Shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech PFE.N BNTX.O vaccine
fanned out to distribution points across the United States on
Sunday, with injections set to begin later on Monday.
The inoculations are seen as pivotal toward ultimately
halting the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed more than a
million lives around the world and bought economic activity to a
halt.
Cruise operators Carnival Corp CCL.N and Royal Caribbean
Cruises RCL.N rose 5.5% and 3.5%, respectively, in premarket
trade, while stocks of major airline operators rose between 1.5%
and 3.0%, with Jetblue Airways Corp JBLU.O leading gains.
Travel and leisure stocks are the worst hit by restrictions
on movement due to the pandemic, and have reacted positively to
any vaccine-related news.
Shares of delivery firms FedEx Corp FDX.N and United
Parcel Service Inc UPS.N , which are leading the vaccine
distribution project, rose about 2.2% and 2.1%, respectively.
At 6:34 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were up 241 points, or
0.8%, S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were up 27 points, or 0.74%, and
Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were up 62.25 points, or 0.5%.
U.S. stocks had rallied through the past few weeks, with the
S&P 500 touching a series of record highs as markets bet on the
swift approval and roll out of a vaccine.
But uncertainty over more fiscal stimulus had stifled gains,
after the Senate last week approved a one-week extension of
federal funding to avoid a government shutdown and to provide
more time for negotiations on COVID-19 relief and an overarching
spending bill. Among individual movers, Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc
ALXN.O surged 32.3% after British drugmaker AstraZeneca
AZN.L AZN.O said it would buy the U.S. biotech firm for $39
billion in one of this year's biggest mergers worldwide.
AstraZeneca's U.S.-listed shares fell 5.3%. Ecommerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA.N shed
1.5% after China warned its internet majors of more anti-trust
scrutiny and slapped fines and announced probes into deals
involving Alibaba and Tencent Holdings Ltd 0700.HK .