US pre-open: Futures have stocks opening lower as Wall Street tracks losses in Europe

Futures were pointing to a modest downdraft for stocks on Wall Street at the start of trading on Friday, tracking the losses seen in Europe as political woes in Italy weighed on investor sentiment across the continent.

As of 1230 BST, Dow futures were down 0.50%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had those two indices opening 0.56% and 0.77% weaker, respectively.

Stocks finished higher on Thursday, bringing traders some sense of relief after the rollercoaster trading conditions seen during the previous session.

However, lenders' shares were dragging markets lower in Europe on Friday morning as Italian banks tumbled on political uncertainty.

Italy's coalition government imploded on Thursday evening, with deputy prime minister and leader of the nation's ruling Lega party, Matteo Salvini, labelling the arrangement unworkable before calling for fresh general elections that analysts said might possibly take place as early as October .

Back in the US, Bloomberg revealed overnight that Washington was holding out on granting US companies permission to use Huawei products, shortly after Beijing said it would stop buying American crops.

Market participants were also likely to keep a close eye on the Treasury yield curve, with recent moves threatening to send 10-year rates below those on 2-year notes - resulting in a s so-called inversion that had preceded every recession over the past 40 years.

On the data front, producer price data for July was scheduled for release at 1330 BST.

In corporate news, WPP and Tribune Media were among the corporates that were set to report on Friday.