US STOCKS-Tech stocks, banks set to drag Wall St lower at open

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* Weekly jobless claims fall
* All eyes on Biden's press conference later in the day
* Nike skids on social media fallout over Xinjiang statement
* Futures off: Dow 0.45%, S&P 0.44%, Nasdaq 0.55%

(Adds comment; updates prices)
By Devik Jain
March 25 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes were set to
open lower on Thursday, dragged down by technology and bank
stocks, while data showed jobless claims fell last week as the
labor market continued to limp out of a coronavirus-induced
recession.
The Labor Department's weekly jobless claims report, the
most timely indicator of economic health, showed initial claims
for state unemployment benefits fell to 684,000 for the week
ended March 20 from 781,000 in the previous week. "Most investors have assumed that we will return to a much
more normal economy after this summer," said Rick Meckler, a
partner at Cherry Lane Investments in New Vernon, New Jersey.
"They're assuming that the numbers today are not that
meaningful if you consider that the economy potentially
completely re-opens later in the year."
The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite .IXIC has fallen
this month as rosy economic projections lifted demand for
undervalued stocks including energy, mining and industrial
firms, but raised fears of higher inflation and a potential tax
hike.
In testimonies to Congress this week, Federal Reserve Chair
Jerome Powell expressed optimism about a strong U.S. economic
rebound, while Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said future tax
hikes will be needed to pay for public investments. President Joe Biden is expected to lay out a new goal for
U.S. vaccinations against COVID-19 at his first formal White
House news conference beginning at 1:15 p.m. ET (1715 GMT). Next
week, he is also set to unveil a multitrillion-dollar
infrastructure plan in Pittsburgh. "It's a tale of two different markets at this point and it
depends on what the market wants to focus on," said Faron Daugs,
founder and chief executive officer of Harrison Wallace
Financial Group.
"Does it want to focus on stimulus, increased vaccinations
and re-opening economies or on potential taxes, increased
regulation potentially in certain sectors, extremely high
spending and inflation."
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 gave up early gains to
fall between 0.3% and 0.7% in premarket trading.
Heavyweight tech stocks Facebook Inc FB.O , Google parent
Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O and Twitter Inc TWTR.N fell between
0.8% and 2.7% ahead of their chief executives' testimony before
Congress about extremism and misinformation on their services.
At 8:50 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were down 144 points,
or 0.45%, S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were down 17 points, or 0.44%,
and Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were down 70.25 points, or 0.55%.
Shares of Nike Inc NKE.N fell 5.7% 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.