US STOCKS-Futures rise as jobless claims expected to edge lower

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* Futures up: Dow 0.24%, S&P 0.25%, Nasdaq 0.38%

By Devik Jain
March 25 (Reuters) - U.S. stock futures rose on Thursday
ahead of data that is likely to show a drop in weekly jobless
claims, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq looked set to rebound
after a 2% drop in the previous session.
The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC , home to the best-performing
stocks last year including Apple Inc AAPL.O , Amazon.com Inc
AMZN.O and Tesla Inc TSLA.O , has fallen this month as rosy
economic projections lifted demand for undervalued stocks
including energy, mining and industrial firms.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary
Janet Yellen on Wednesday again expressed optimism about a
strong U.S. economic rebound, with Powell saying the most likely
case is 2021 will be "a very, very strong year." The Labor Department's weekly jobless claims report, the
most timely indicator of economic health, is expected to show
claims fell to 730,000 in the week ended March 20 from 770,000
in the previous week.
Economically-sensitive bank stocks including JPMorgan Chase
& Co JPM.N , Citigroup C.N , Wells Fargo WFC.N , Goldman
Sachs GS.N and Bank of America BAC.N were up between 0.2%
and 0.8% in premarket trading.
Heavyweight tech stocks Facebook Inc FB.O , Google parent
Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O and Twitter Inc TWTR.N rose between
0.3% and 0.5% ahead of their chief executives' testimony before
Congress about extremism and misinformation on their services.
At 6:54 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were up 76 points, or
0.24%, S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were up 9.75 points, or 0.25%,
and Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were up 48.25 points, or 0.38%.
Shares of Nike Inc NKE.N fell 4.1% as the sporting goods
giant faced a Chinese social media backlash over its comments
about reports of forced labor in Xinjiang. U.S.-listed shares of Baidu Inc BIDU.O , Alibaba Group
Holding Ltd BABA.N and JD.Com Inc JD.O were subdued after
the U.S. securities regulator adopted measures that would kick
foreign companies off stock exchanges if they do not comply with
U.S. auditing standards.