* Futures: Dow up 2 pts, S&P off 1 pt, Nasdaq down 2.75 pts

By Sruthi Shankar

Oct 17 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures were steady on Tuesday as investors assessed earnings reports from big corporates, including investment bank Morgan Stanley and healthcare major Johnson & Johnson.

* Morgan Stanley shares jumped 2 percent in premarket trading after posting an 11 percent rise in profit as strength in investment banking and wealth management more than made up for slowdown in trading.

* Goldman Sachs, last of the big Wall Street banks to report, was down half a percent ahead of its report.

* Johnson & Johnson gained 1 percent after reporting a better-than-expected profit.

* UnitedHealth rose 1.45 percent after the largest U.S. health insurer's profit beat estimates and the company raised its full-year earnings forecast.

* The reporting period is set to pick up pace with some big names Honeywell, Procter & Gamble, United Continental and Alcoa expected later this week.

* The dollar and U.S. treasury yields took comfort from news that U.S. President Donald Trump might pick Stanford University economist John Taylor to lead the Federal Reserve, after Janet Yellen's term ends next year.

* The former Fed board member is seen as more hawkish than Yellen and other names being considered to take over the central bank.

* Trump will meet Yellen on Thursday as part of his search for a new candidate for her position, a source familiar with the planned meeting said.

* All three major U.S. stock indexes rose to record closing highs on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average less than 50 points below 23,000, as financial shares recovered from last week's losses.

* The S&P financial index, up about 12 percent this year, still underperforms the broader S&P 500's progress.

* The CBOE Volatility index, Wall Street's measure of market nervousness, stayed near its recent record lows at below 10 percent.

* A Fed report due at 9:15 a.m. ET (1315 GMT) is likely to show industrial production rebounded 0.3 percent in September following a hurricane-related 0.9 percent decline in August.

* Netflix jumped 2.33 percent after the online video streaming service said it added more subscribers than expected in the third quarter and projected growth in line with Wall Street forecasts.

Futures snapshot at 7:01 a.m. ET:

* Dow e-minis were up 2 points, or 0.01 percent, with 11,833 contracts changing hands.

* S&P 500 e-minis were down 1 point, or 0.04 percent, with 57,432 contracts traded.

* Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 2.75 points, or 0.04 percent, on volume of 12,791 contracts. (Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)