US STOCKS-Futures climb as U.S.-China tensions ease
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* Nonfarm payrolls likely to plunge 22 mln in April
* Disney rises as tickets sellout for Shanghai park
* Uber Technologies climbs as ride service bookings recover
* Futures up: Dow 0.90%, S&P 0.93%, Nasdaq 0.94% (Adds quote, details; updates prices)
By C Nivedita and Medha Singh
May 8 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures jumped about 1% on Friday as signs of an easing in U.S.-China friction boosted sentiment ahead of a closely watched jobs report that is likely to show the steepest plunge in payrolls since the Great Depression.
After President Donald Trump rattled investors last week by threatening new tariffs against China, Beijing said on Friday both sides had agreed to improve the atmosphere for the implementation of a Phase 1 trade deal.
Wall Street is now on course for its first weekly increase in three, with the Nasdaq recouping all its losses for 2020, even as the Labor Department's employment report due at 8:30 a.m. ET is likely to show the U.S. economy lost a staggering 22 million jobs in April.
"The disconnect between sanguine financial markets and an imploding real economy grows larger by the day as bets for more and more stimulus are leading Wall Street to turn a blind eye to how catastrophic economic data really are," said Marios Hadjikyriacos, investment analyst at online broker XM.
On Thursday, financial markets began pricing in a negative U.S. interest rate environment for the first time ever, expecting the Federal Reserve to pump even more cash into the system to rescue the economy from a deep global recession.
At 7:57 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 214 points, or 0.9%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 26.75 points, or 0.93% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 85.5 points, or 0.94%.
Among early movers, Disney rose 2.5% as tickets for the earliest days of Shanghai Disneyland's re-opening in China sold out rapidly.
Uber Technologies Inc jumped 7.3% as the company said its ride service bookings slowly recovered in recent weeks and that it expects a coronavirus-related slowdown will delay the goal of becoming profitable by a matter of quarters, not years.
Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp fell 5.5% after the IT services and outsourcing firm warned of weak demand this year.
About 392 of the S&P 500 companies have reported so far and first-quarter earnings are expected to have fallen 12.1%, with analysts expecting an earnings recession by the second quarter, according to Refinitiv data. (Reporting by C Nivedita and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva, Sagarika Jaisinghani and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
