U.S. stock futures were slightly higher Tuesday with mergers and acquisitions lifting sentiment and as New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley suggested that the Fed won’t be so quick to raise interest rates in the wake of the weak jobs report Friday.
At 8:30 a.m. E.T., Dudley will speak again, in Newark, N.J., on the national and regional economies, while his Minneapolis counterpart Naryana Kocherlakota will speak in Bismarck, N.D.
Also out today, at 10:00 a.m. is the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, which is expected to show 5.01 million job openings in February over 4.998 million in January.
In equities, package delivery and logistics firm FedEx ( FDX ) said it has agreed to buy Dutch rival TNT Express for EUR8 per share, or about $ 4.8 billion in total. FDX was higher 5.3% in recent pre-market trade. Meanwhile, Informatica ( INFA ), a provider of enterprise data-integration software and services, said it has agreed to be acquired by a company controlled by the Permira funds and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for approximately $ 5.3 billion. INFA was up 5.2% prior to a halt.