Wall Street set to open lower as US crude slips

By Abhiram Nandakumar

REUTERS - Wall Street was set to open lower on Wednesday, as oil prices fell after data showed U.S. crude stockpiles touched record highs.

U.S. crude fell more than 1 percent after a report from the American Petroleum Institute (API) showed that inventories rose by 9.9 million barrels last week, way above estimates.

However, global stocks rallied, as Brent crude steadied and positive economic data eased some fears of slowing global economic growth.

Wall Street closed sharply higher on Tuesday, led by financial and technology stocks, after data suggested the world's biggest economy was regaining momentum.

"The market got severely overbought yesterday," said Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James Financial in Florida. "It would not be surprising to see stocks pull back a little bit here."

At 8:16 a.m. ET (1316 GMT), Dow e-minis were down 25 points, or 0.15 percent, with 31,401 contracts changing hands.

S&P 500 e-minis were down 3.5 points, or 0.18 percent, with 237,505 contracts traded. Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 2.75 points, or 0.06 percent, on volume of 28,040 contracts.

The U.S. economy continues to show signs of recovery even as China and euro-zone countries struggle to spark their sputtering economic growth engines, pushing central banks to adopt diverging monetary policies.

Investors are increasingly facing the prospects of higher interest rates from the U.S. Federal Reserve, while also expecting more monetary stimulus from the European Central Bank and the People's Bank of China.

Data on Wednesday showed the U.S. private sector added 214,000 jobs in February, compared with 190,000 estimated by analysts.

The report serves as a precursor to the more comprehensive monthly jobs report by the U.S. Labor Department on Friday.

Shares of Zynga were up 7.9 percent at $2.33 premarket after the "Farmville" creator named a new chief executive and said founder Mark Pincus would be executive chairman.

Alibaba was up 1.5 percent at $71.94 after Bloomberg reported that the Chinese e-commerce firm's finance arm was in talks to invest in Caixin Media.

Monsanto was down 4.9 percent at $87 after the company issued full-year forecasts.

The Fed will also issue its Beige Book report of anecdotes on business activity at 2 p.m. ET. San Francisco Fed President John Williams is slated to speak later in the day.

(Reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)