US STOCKS-Wall St futures steady, chip stocks slip on China sales deal

Aug 11 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures were little changed on Monday as investors geared up for a busy week, while major chip companies seemed caught in the middle of the latest twist in trade policy ahead of a key tariff deadline with China.

Semiconductor giant Nvidia NVDA.O dropped 1% in premarket trading and Advanced Micro Devices AMD.O lost 2%.

A U.S. official told Reuters that the companies had agreed to give the United States government 15% of revenue from the sales of their advanced computer chips to China, days after the Commerce Department began issuing licenses for the sale of Nvidia's H20 chips.

Sale of the semiconductors was an integral issue in the U.S. agreement with China signed earlier this year and could strain the relationship between the two economies just before Tuesday's deadline for the deal's expiration.

"The Trump administration reckons higher prices and snarled-up supply chains are an acceptable price to pay to encourage more U.S. manufacturing," said Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown.

"The unusual arrangement is another example of a mega tech company acquiescing to the U.S. administration's demands, to gain an upper hand as trade relations are redrawn."

Markets also await clarity on the sector tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump has announced.

At 05:45 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis YMcv1 were up 98 points, or 0.22%, with 7,922 contracts changing hands, S&P 500 E-minis EScv1 were up 6.25 points, or 0.10%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis NQcv1 were up 11.5 points, or 0.05%.

Traders took breather after last week's rally helped the S&P 500 .SPX and the Nasdaq .IXIC log their strongest weekly performance in more than a month.

Investors expect the recent shake-up at the U.S. Federal Reserve and signs of labor market weakness could nudge the central bank into adopting a dovish monetary policy stance later this year, fueling much of the optimism.

Tuesday's consumer inflation report will either cast more doubt or offer clarity for investors, who are currently anticipating the Fed will lower borrowing costs by about 60 basis points by December, according to data compiled by LSEG.

A better-than-feared earnings season was also a relief and BofA's monthly fund manager survey showed that owning megacap stocks was once again the most popular trade.

Apple AAPL.O was a standout last week following its biggest weekly showing in five years, after the iPhone maker unveiled a series of U.S. investment pledges. The company's shares were down 0.7% on Monday.

Gene therapy developers fell, with Sarepta Therapeutics SRPT.O dropping 7.6% and Capricor Therapeutics CAPR.O declined 9% as Vinay Prasad, a fierce critic of U.S. COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates, was expected to return to the Food and Drug Administration.

Intel INTC.O was up 1.6% and focus turned to a report that said CEO Lip-Bu Tan was expected to visit the White House after Trump called for his removal last week.

In geopolitical news, Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin are expected to meet on Friday to try and negotiate an end to the Ukraine war, which could also affect the outlook for crude prices. O/R