Wall Street set for higher open; Yellen in focus

By Yashaswini Swamynathan

(Reuters) - Wall Street was set for a higher open on Monday as investors await Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's speech after a weak jobs report jolted markets on Friday, killing the prospects of an interest rate hike this month.

Yellen, who recently signaled that the recovering economy could support a rate hike as soon as June, will speak before the World Affairs Council in Philadelphia at 12:30 p.m. ET (1630 GMT).

Expectations for the next Fed rate hike were pushed back to at least July after U.S. May non-farm payrolls data on Friday showed employers added only 38,000 jobs in May, far below expectations of 164,000.

"We're coming off of a session where a wrench was thrown into many economic models after the weak jobs data and investors are going to be looking for anything in Yellen's speech that is going to address the weakness," said Andre Bakhos, managing director at Janlyn Capital LLC in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

"The data is a wake up call and is going to create a greater look for any weak spots in the economy to remove the rate threat."

Many traders suspect Yellen might craft her message to keep expectations for a July hike alive. The speech is likely to be her last before the Fed enters a media blackout period ahead of the its monetary policy meeting on June 14-15.

Dow e-minis were up 57 points, or 0.32 percent at 8:51 a.m. ET, with 21,784 contracts changing hands.

S&P 500 e-minis were up 5.25 points, or 0.25 percent, with 167,502 contracts traded.

Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 12 points, or 0.27 percent, on volume of 17,971 contracts.

Britain's vote later this month on the continuance of its European Union membership is also a factor that could cause the Fed to rollback on its recent hawkish stand.

Traders are now pricing in an only 3.8 percent chance of a rate hike this month, while the odds of a July hike have slumped to 30 percent, from 49 percent before the jobs report, according to CME Group's FedWatch tool.

Wall Street closed lower on Friday, weighed down by bank stocks after the dismal jobs report.

Oil prices rose over 2 percent on Monday on a weak dollar and as attacks on oil infrastructure in Nigeria capped some output. [O/R]

Wal-Mart's shares were up 1 percent at $71.58 premarket after Jefferies upgraded the stock to "buy".

AbbVie was down nearly 4 percent at $62.50 after Cowen cut the stock to "market perform" from "outperform".

(Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)