US STOCKS-Wall St set to kick off big retail earnings week on high note

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* Home improvement retailers seen getting sales boost
* S&P 500 about 0.6% off intraday record high
* Futures up: Dow 0.27%, S&P 0.38%, Nasdaq 0.77%

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By Ambar Warrick and Medha Singh
Aug 17 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes were set to
open higher on Monday as retailers prepared to wind down a
better-than-feared quarterly earnings season, while investors
continued to watch for the S&P 500 to breach record-high levels.
The benchmark S&P 500 .SPX ended Friday about 0.4% below a
record closing high hit in February after flirting with that
level for the most of last week as a clutch of data pointed to a
wobbly recovery for the world's biggest economy.
"It goes back to the basic factor - with interest rates low,
next to zero even though yields have gone up, there is no place
to put your money so stocks continue to hover near record
highs," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan
Capital Securities in New York.
"I am not sure if we can (hit a record high) today because
up until now there's no particular news that would spark a
strong rally."
Figures this week are likely to show another jump in housing
starts, as certain facets of the economy slowly ground back from
a pandemic-driven trough.
Home improvement chains such as Lowe's Companies Inc LOW.N
and Home Depot Inc HD.N are expected to have received a bump
to sales from consumers looking to do minor repair work while
spending more time at home due to the pandemic.
The retailers, along with Walmart Inc WMT.N , Kohls Corp
KSS.N , and Target Corp TGT.N rose between 1.1% and 2%
premarket ahead of their quarterly earnings reports later in the
week.
As of Friday, 457 companies in the S&P 500 had posted
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 the 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 8:22 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were up 75 points, or
0.27%. S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were up 12.75 points, or 0.38%
and Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were up 85.5 points, or 0.77%.
Among individual movers, Principia Biopharma Inc PRNB.O
jumped 9.3% premarket and was set to open at a record high after
French healthcare firm Sanofi SA SASY.PA said it will buy
Principia for about $3.7 billion. Chinese ecommerce website Alibaba Group BABA.N slipped
0.2% 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.