Wall St set to tick higher with eyes on FedEx, other deals

By Rodrigo Campos

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures edged up on Tuesday, following two sessions of gains for the S&P 500, with deals including a bid from FedEx for a Dutch peer indicating companies still see value in the market.

* A thin economic calendar and no earnings reports from S&P 500 components will leave traders wanting, with the benchmark index less than 2 percent away from its record high set early last month.

* Shares of FedEx rose 5.1 percent in premarket trading as it seeks to buy Dutch package delivery company TNT Express for $4.8 billion. Two years ago, competition regulators blocked United Parcel Service's bid for TNT because, unlike FedEx, that suitor already had a strong European network.

* General Motors shares fell 1.8 percent after Canada agreed to sell nearly 73.4 million shares of the automaker to Goldman Sachs.

* Informatica Corp jumped 4.8 percent after the enterprise software provider said it would be taken private by Permira Advisers and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for about $5.3 billion.

* In yet another deal, Axalta Coating Systems said Berkshire Hathaway would buy an 8.7 percent stake in the paint company from controlling shareholder Carlyle Group for $560 million. Axalta shares gained 4.1 percent.

* Ocwen Financial Corp jumped 9.5 percent after New Residential Investment acquired Home Loan Servicing Solutions and separately agreed to a multiyear extension of the servicing contracts with Ocwen.

* Viacom fell 2 percent after it halted its $20 billion repurchase program as it embarks in a restructuring that includes cutting jobs and reorganizing three of its domestic network groups.

Futures snapshot at 8:25 a.m. EDT (1225 GMT):

* S&P 500 e-minis were up 3.5 points, or 0.17 percent, with 127,610 contracts changing hands.

* Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 7.75 points, or 0.18 percent, on volume of 16,946 contracts.

* Dow e-minis were up 35 points, or 0.2 percent, with 21,193 contracts changing hands.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)