Wall St. set to open little changed ahead of Fed statement

(Reuters) - Wall Street was set to open little changed on Wednesday on hopes that Beijing could stem the rout in its markets and ahead of a statement from the U.S. Federal Reserve that could give clues regarding the timing of a rate hike.

Investors are focused on the outcome of the Fed's two-day policy meeting with markets divided on whether it will take a hawkish or dovish stance. No move on rates is expected this week.

In a recent congressional testimony, Fed Chair Janet Yellen neither ruled out a September interest rate hike nor guided the market toward thinking it was a done deal. The statement is expected at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT).

U.S. interest rates have remained near zero for nearly a decade. Higher rates increase the cost of borrowing for companies.

"If the Fed continues to be relatively neutral in its tone by not dropping any hints of an imminent rate hike probably markets will continue to stabilize," Societe Generale strategist Alvin Tan said.

Data expected later in the day includes Pending Home Sales Index for June at 10 a.m. ET. The index is likely to show a slight increase of 1.0 percent, compared with a 0.9 rise in May.

S&P 500 e-minis were up 2 points, or 0.1 percent, with 152,729 contracts traded at 8:37 a.m. ET. Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 7 points, or 0.15 percent, on volume of 22,414 contracts while Dow e-minis <1YMc1> were up 36 points, or 0.21 percent, with 16,635 contracts changing hands.

Pledges from Chinese regulators to buy shares to stabilize stocks if needed and hints of more policy easing from the central bank also soothed sentiments.

U.S. stocks ended sharply higher on Tuesday, breaking a five-day losing streak as attention shifted from trouble in Chinese equities to U.S. corporate earnings.

With second-quarter reports well under way, analysts now expect overall earnings of S&P 500 companies to edge up 0.3 percent and revenue to decline 4.0 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.

While earnings are expected to increase this quarter, valuations remain a concern. The S&P 500 is trading near 16.9 times forward 12-month earnings, above the 10-year median of 14.7 times, according to StarMine data.

Companies expected to report on Wednesday include Facebook and MetLife after the close.

Twitter shares fell more than 11.3 percent to $32.43 in premarket trading after the microblogging company said its number of monthly average users rose at the slowest pace since it went public in 2013.

Yelp slumped 22.2 percent to $26.10 after the operator of consumer review website Yelp.com, reported a surprise loss and forecast revenue for the current quarter that fell far below market expectations.

MasterCard fell 2.8 percent to $92.50 after the credit and debit card company's profit fell, hurt by higher expenses.

Akamai Technologies was down 8.3 percent at $67.51 after the online content distributor forecast third-quarter revenue and profit below estimates.

Gilead Sciences rose 3.5 percent to $117.10 after the company raised its outlook for 2015 product sales by $1 billion.

(Editing by Don Sebastian)