US STOCKS-Futures tick up ahead of big retail earnings week

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* Futures up: Dow 0.20%, S&P 0.30%, Nasdaq 0.63%

By Ambar Warrick
Aug 17 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures rose on Monday
as retailers prepared to wind down a better-than-feared
quarterly earnings season, while the countdown to Election Day
was set to begin with the Democratic National Convention kicking
off later in the day.
The benchmark S&P 500 .SPX ended Friday below its
pre-pandemic record closing high as a Wall Street rally lost
steam with a clutch of data pointing to a wobbly recovery for
the world's biggest economy.
But figures this week are likely to show another jump in
housing starts as demand surges for single-family homes in the
suburbs, in turn benefiting sales of home improvement chains
such as Lowe's Companies Inc LOW.N and Home Depot Inc HD.N .
The retailers, along with Walmart Inc WMT.N , Kohls Corp
KSS.N , and Target Corp TGT.N are due to report
second-quarter earnings later in the week.
As of Friday, 457 companies in the S&P 500 had reported
results, of which 81.4% came in above dramatically lowered
expectations, according to Refinitiv data.
Minutes of the Federal Reserve's latest meeting, due on
Wednesday, are expected to provide more insight into the central
bank's view of the recovery.
Investors are also girding their portfolios for market moves
ahead of the U.S. presidential vote, as election season kicks
into higher gear with the Democratic National Convention, which
runs Monday through Thursday.
The Republican convention will be held from Aug. 24 to Aug.
27 and both will be mostly virtual this year due to the COVID-19
pandemic. At 6:47 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were up 56 points, or
0.2%, S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were up 10.25 points, or 0.3%, and
Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were up 70.25 points, or 0.63%.
Among individual movers, Principia Biopharma Inc PRNB.O
jumped 9.7% premarket after French healthcare firm Sanofi SA
SASY.PA said it will buy the firm for about $3.7 billion.
Chinese ecommerce website Alibaba Group BABA.N fell 1.2%
after U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday he could
exert pressure on more Chinese companies after he moved to ban
TikTok earlier in the month.