US STOCKS-Futures rise ahead of March business surveys; Intel shines

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* Futures up: Dow 0.30%, S&P 0.36%, Nasdaq 0.77%

By Devik Jain and Medha Singh
March 24 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures rose on
Wednesday as Intel's shares surged on plans to expand advanced
chip making capacity, while investors looked to business surveys
for March and another day of testimonies from the top two U.S.
economic officials.
The chipmaker's shares INTC.O jumped about 5.7% as it
announced plans to spend as much as $20 billion to build two
factories in Arizona and open its factories to outside
customers. U.S.-listed shares of rival Taiwan Semiconductor TSM.N
dropped 2.6%, while semiconductor equipment makers Lam Research
Corp LRCX.O , Applied Materials Inc AMAT.O and ASML Holding
ASML.O gained between 4.4% and 5.7%.
Wall Street's main indexes stumbled on Tuesday, weighed down
by concerns about the cost of infrastructure spending and
potential tax hikes to pay for President Joe Biden's $1.9
trillion relief bill.
U.S. Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell and Treasury
Secretary Janet Yellen will resume their Congressional hearings
later in the day.
Economy-linked energy and banks stocks have come under
pressure recently as investors booked profits after a sharp
rally on recovery hopes and moved into beaten-down technology
and growth names that were hit by elevated bond yields.
Facebook Inc FB.O , Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O , Apple Inc
AAPL.O , Microsoft Corp MSFT.O and Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O
rose between 0.6% and 0.7%.
At 6:30 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis 1YMcv1 were up 96 points, or
0.3%, S&P 500 E-minis EScv1 were up 14 points, or 0.36% and
Nasdaq 100 E-minis NQcv1 were up 100.75 points, or 0.77%.
Bitcoin BTC=BTSP gained about 4% as Tesla Inc TSLA.O
chief Elon Musk said the company's electric vehicles can now be
bought using bitcoin and the option will be available outside
the United States later this year. Tesla's shares advanced about 1.6%.
GameStop Corp GME.N dropped 13% after the video game
retailer said it may sell new shares as the company that led the
Reddit rally of "meme stocks" looks to take advantage of a more
than 800% surge in its stock price since January. Energy stocks Exxon Mobil XOM.N , Chevron Corp CVX.N ,
Schlumberger NV SLB.N , Occidental Petroleum OXY.N and
Marathon Oil MRO.N were up between 1% and 4.2%, as crude
prices rebounded from a 6% fall in the last session. O/R
IHS Markit's flash reading at 9:45 a.m ET is likely to show
business activity in the manufacturing and services sectors
improved in March from the prior month.