Wall Street set to open flat as rough week draws to a close

By Yashaswini Swamynathan

(Reuters) - Wall Street looked set to open little changed on Friday, the first day of the third quarter, as investors took a breather heading into a long weekend after a tumultuous week.

U.S. stock index futures swung between small gains and losses as investors looked beyond the effect of Britain's vote to leave the European Union.

The vote sparked a two-day panic selloff, but markets clawed back their losses in the last three days. Wall Street closed higher on Thursday on prospects that the Bank of England could cut interest rates to support the British economy.

"I think we are going to have a slow drift up," said Brad McMillan, chief investment officer of Commonwealth Financial Network in Massachusetts.

"Everybody is at the beach already and I don't expect a lot of action, in the absence of some kind of market-moving information."

U.S. stock exchanges will be closed on Monday for the U.S. Independence Day holiday.

Dow e-minis were up 9 points, or 0.05 percent at 8:17 a.m. ET (1217 GMT), with 26,761 contracts changing hands. S&P 500 e-minis were up 0.5 points, or 0.02 percent, with 233,155 contracts traded. Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 1.25 points, or 0.03 percent, on volume of 20,371 contracts.

The S&P and the Dow closed higher for the second quarter ended June 30, while the Nasdaq was off about 0.6 percent.

The Institute for Supply Management will release its national factory activity index for June, which is expected to have risen slightly to 51.4 from 51.3 in May, at 10 a.m. ET.

Data showed Chinese manufacturing activity stalled in June, boding ill for the global economy but raising expectations of stimulus to boost the world's second-largest economy.

The prospect of monetary stimulus globally sent yields on the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond to their lowest levels in four years.

Micron fell 9.2 percent to $12.50 in premarket trading after the chipmaker reported disappointing quarterly sales and forecast and said it would cut jobs. The stock was the biggest percentage loser among S&P 500 companies.

Tesla fell 2.2 percent to $207.50 after a fatal accident involving a Model S car operating in autopilot mode prompted investigation by U.S. federal highway safety regulators.

Qualcomm fell 1 percent after Evercore downgraded its shares to "hold" from "buy".

(Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)