US STOCKS-Wall Street set for higher open on M&A activity, vaccine hopes

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* Nvidia climbs on $40 bln deal for chip designer Arm
* Pfizer, BioNTech expand late stage COVID-19 vaccine trial
* Oracle surges on report of partnering with ByteDance
* Futures up: Dow 0.86%, S&P 1.14%, Nasdaq 1.29%

(Adds comment, details; updates prices)
By Medha Singh and Devik Jain
Sept 14 (Reuters) - Futures pointed to a higher open for
Wall Street on Monday on signs of progress in developing a
COVID-19 vaccine and a flurry of multi-billion dollar deals,
including reports of Oracle winning the battle for the U.S. arm
of TikTok.
Shares of Oracle ORCL.N surged 6% to near record highs in
premarket trading, leading gains among the S&P 500 constituents
after sources said the cloud services firm was entering a deal
with TikTok-owner ByteDance structured as a partnership to
navigate geopolitical tensions. A Microsoft Corp MSFT.O -led consortium that included
Walmart Inc WMT.N was also in talks for TikTok's U.S.
business. Their shares fell marginally.
Nvidia Corp NVDA.O jumped 5.8% on plans to buy UK-based
chip designer Arm from Japan's SoftBank Group Corp 9984.T for
as much as $40 billion, in a deal set to reshape the global
semiconductor landscape. "Wall Street always rewards growth," said Kim Forrest, chief
investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners in Pittsburgh.
"That's why these deals are exciting, because if you put two
companies together, by definition, you're going to have
inorganic growth, but you're going to see growth."
The S&P 500 is coming off of two straight weeks of losses,
its first such pace of declines since the coronavirus-led crash
in March, as investors sold heavyweight technology shares that
had powered the benchmark index to record highs in five-months.
On Monday, Amazon.com rose about 2% after the online
shopping giant said it is hiring 100,000 more workers in its
latest job spree for the United States this year - to keep pace
with e-commerce demand that jumped during the pandemic.
Apple Inc AAPL.O , Facebook.com FB.O and Google-parent
Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O rose between 1% and 1.4%.
At 8:18 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were up 238 points, or
0.86%, S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were up 38 points, or 1.14% and
Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were up 143 points, or 1.29%.
Global equities also got a lift on Monday after drugmaker
AstraZeneca AZN.L resumed its British clinical trials of its
COVID-19 vaccine, one of the most advanced in development.
MKTS/GLOB
Pfizer Inc PFE.N gained 2.1% after the drugmaker and
German biotech firm BioNTech SE 22UAy.F proposed expansion of
their Phase 3 pivotal COVID-19 vaccine trial to about 44,000
participants. Later this week investors will focus on the Federal
Reserve's last policy meeting before the Nov. 3 U.S.
presidential elections.
Gilead Sciences Inc GILD.O slipped 1.4% as it said will
acquire biotech company Immunomedics Inc IMMU.O for $21
billion, a move that will strengthen its cancer portfolio by
gaining access to a promising drug. Shares of Immunomedics more than doubled in value.