US pre-open: Futures lower as holiday shopping season kicks off

Wall Street stocks were in the red ahead of the bell on Monday as major indices come off their fourth-straight winning week.

As of 1250 GMT, Dow Jones futures were down 0.13%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.14% and 0.08% weaker, respectively.

The Dow closed 117.12 points higher on Friday's holiday-shortened session as stocks continued their rally, fuelled by the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield's retreat from the 5% mark it briefly hit last month.

Scope Markets' Joshua Mahony said: "US markets look set for a negative open today, as we enter what could be a fifth consecutive week of gains across all three major US indices. Declining US treasury yields have helped sentiment, with markets increasingly looking out for a Fed rate cut in the first half of 2024. The latest core PCE price index data due on Thursday should help further inform markets over the likeliness of such a swift return to monetary easing. With today’s cyber-Monday sales closing out a key weekend for retailers, early signs have pointed towards continued strength according to the key Adobe Analytics report.

"With Friday seeing US consumers splash a record $9.8bn in online sales, we are yet to see whether this is a sign of overall strength for the fourth quarter or simply a sign that price-conscious shoppers are seeking to front-load their purchases in a bid to avoid paying the full-ticket price. It is also worth noting that inflationary pressures mean that record sales should not necessarily be a big surprise, with businesses also having higher costs that mean record revenues may not necessarily result in record profits for retailers."

On the macro front, new home sales data will be out at 1500 GMT, while the Dallas Federal Reserve's November manufacturing index will follow at 1530 GMT. Consumer confidence and inflation figures will both be on deck later in the week.

In the corporate space, investors will be on the lookout for any updates from retailers after Friday marked the beginning of the all-important holiday shopping season as weak spending could go a way to indicate that the central bank's aggressive interest rate hikes have finally started to take hold on the economy.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com