US pre-open: Futures point to losses going into final session of Q3 trading

Wall Street futures were in the red ahead of the opening bell after major indices notched a third-straight winning week in what has historically been a rough month for stocks.

As of 1245 BST, Dow Jones futures were down 0.16%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.21% and 0.28% lower, respectively.

The Dow closed 137.89 points higher on Friday, the penultimate session for both September and the third quarter.

Trade Nation's David Morrison said: "US stock index futures were mixed in early trade this morning, but with a slight downward bias. It was a similar situation to Friday's close which saw small losses for the S&P and NASDAQ, and modest gains for the Dow and Russell 2000. The Dow eked out yet another record close on a day which brought the latest update on Core PCE, the Fed's preferred inflation measure. The year-on-year release ticked up a touch, as expected. But this was offset by a better-than-forecast month-on-month number.

"September can often be a tricky month for equities. But as things stand this has been a positive one, helped in part by the Fed's bumper 50 basis point rate cut, plus the expectation of more reductions to come. The path of least resistance still points up for US equity markets. But it is worth noting that the VIX remains elevated when compared to where it was in July. There are no obvious reasons for investors to turn bearish. But there is some caution creeping in as the major indices trade at or near their all-time highs."

On the macro front, September's Chicago purchasing managers' index will be published at 1445 BST, while the Dallas Federal Reserve's manufacturing business index will follow at 1530 BST and Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell will deliver a speech at 1800 BST.

In the corporate space, shares in Jeep parent company Stellantis were down double-digits early on Monday after it warned of lower-than-expected sales "across most regions" in H2, dragging both General Motors and Ford down with it.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com