Wall St futures point to higher open for U.S. stocks

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures pointed to a higher open for Wall Street on Monday, with futures for the S&P 500, the Dow Jones industrial average and Nasdaq futures up 0.7 to 0.9 percent by 4:51 a.m. ET.

* Some relief is expected in the banking sector, after regulators gave lenders a longer-than-anticipated transition period to comply with tough new capital requirement rules under Basel III.

* Global regulators agreed on Sunday to force banks to more than triple the amount of top-quality capital they must hold in reserve but gave the lenders transition periods, extending in some cases to January 2019 or later, to comply with the rules.

* Some expectations of a brightening outlook for the economy were bolstered by data on Friday showing U.S. wholesale inventories surged the most in two years in July.

* The Dow <.DJI> and S&P 500 <.SPX> closed the week with their seventh gain in eight sessions in a turnaround period for stocks that has seen investors' worst fears about the economy start to dissipate.

* Data set for release on Monday include August's Federal Budget statement at 2 p.m. ET.

* Later in the week, notable data scheduled for release include U.S. retail sales for August on Tuesday, producer price index figures for the same period on Thursday and August consumer price index (CPI) numbers on Friday.

* In company news, UBS and Credit Suisse must hold over 20 billion Swiss francs ($19.6 billion) more in capital as a consequence of new international standards, the newspaper NZZ am Sonntag reported, citing experts familiar with the matter.

* Goldman Sachs Group Inc is in the process of shuffling its ranks of partners and could well name as many as 100 executives to the coveted post this year, the New York Times said.

* BP believes compensation claims related to its Gulf of Mexico oil spill will be less than the $20 billion the oil giant has put into an independent claims fund, analysts at Citigroup said, following a meeting with incoming Chief Executive Bob Dudley.

* British defense company BAE Systems on Monday said it had hired advisors to sell its Platform Solutions business. Sources told Reuters on Saturday that BAE was looking to sell part of its North American commercial aerospace business in an auction that could generate up to $2 billion.

* Hewlett-Packard Co is nearing a deal to buy cybersecurity company ArcSight Inc for about $1.5 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, the latest in a series of tech sector transactions.

* Car rental company Hertz Global Holdings Inc struck a sweetened $1.56 billion deal to buy Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group Inc on Sunday, outdoing a rival bid from Avis Budget Group Inc .

* In Europe, the FTSEurofirst 300 index <.FTEU3> rose to its highest intraday level since late April by mid morning trade, with banks boosted by relief over a long transition period for lenders to comply with Basel III capital requirement rules.

(Reporting by Harpreet Bhal; Editing by Louise Heavens)