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Feb 28 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures inched up on Friday, steadying after sharp declines earlier this week, as investors shifted their focus to a key inflation figure that could influence expectations regarding the Federal Reserve's monetary policy trajectory.

At 5:25 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis 1YMcv1 were up 124 points, or 0.29%, S&P 500 E-minis EScv1 were up 17.5 points, or 0.30% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis NQcv1 were up 48 points, or 0.23%.

The Personal Consumption Expenditure index - the Fed's preferred inflation gauge - is due at 8:30 a.m. ET. The data is expected to show prices increased by 2.5% in January on an annual basis, compared with a 2.6% rise in the month before.

Excluding volatile items such as food and energy, the index is forecast to rise 2.6% in the previous month, compared with a 2.8% increase in December.

Friday's report would be crucial for investors trying to gauge the central bank's next policy move at a time when policymakers have reiterated a hawkish stance on interest rate as they take stock of the potentially inflationary effect the new Donald Trump administration's policies could potentially have on the economy.

Traders see the Fed lowering borrowing costs by 25 basis points for the first time this year in July, according to data compiled by LSEG, and later in the day, investors will assess comments from Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee.

Multiple recent reports suggesting a stalling economy and concerns that technology companies such as Nvidia NVDA.O and Microsoft MSFT.O might be overspending on artificial intelligence infrastructure have put Wall Street's main indexes on track for monthly declines.

The benchmark S&P 500 .SPX has logged declines in five of the past six sessions and is poised for its biggest one-month drop since April 2024, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq .IXIC is down over 8% from its all-time high and is set for its steepest one-month fall since September 2023.

In premarket trading, Nvidia edged up 0.5% after an 8.5% slide in the previous session, which evaporated $274 billion of its market value after the chip giant's weaker-than-expected quarterly gross margin forecast overshadowed an upbeat revenue outlook.

Dell DELL.N lost 2.1% after the PC maker forecast a decline in its adjusted gross margin rate for fiscal year 2026, hit by higher costs to build AI servers.

Peer HP Inc HPQ.N fell 3.3% after its quarterly profit forecasts missed expectations.

Megacaps such as Alphabet GOOGL.O and Meta META.O edged up 0.5% each, while rate-sensitive banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co JPM.N inched up 0.3% and Bank of America BAC.N edged 0.2% higher.

Trump's latest threat to slap an extra 10% duty on imports from China hit U.S.-listed China stocks such as Alibaba BABA.N and Xpeng XPEV.N that fell 4.4% and 8%, respectively.

Trump also said his proposed 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods would take effect on Tuesday.

Crypto stocks such as MicroStrategy MSTR.O dropped 2.8% and Coinbase COIN.O lost 2.6% tracking bitcoin prices BTC= that fell below $80,000.

(Reporting by Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

((johann.mcherian@thomsonreuters.com;))