US pre-open: Futures trade lower ahead of quadruple-witching

Wall Street futures were in the red yet again on Friday as another week in what has been a volatile month for stocks gets set to draw to a close.

As of 1225 BST, Dow Jones futures were down 0.20%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures he'd the indices opening 0.27% and 0.29% weaker, respectively.

The Dow closed 63.07 points lower on Thursday following some key retail sales data and a bigger-than-expected initial jobless claims print.

September's losses look set to carry on ahead of the bell on Friday as market participants continue to air on the side of caution as a result of a resurgent coronavirus on the back of the Delta variant and a key Federal Reserve meeting next week.

Much of this month's volatility has been a result of today's so-called "quadruple witching", which marks the expiration of stock index futures, stock index options, stock options and single-stock futures.

On the macro front, a preliminary reading of the University of Michigan's September consumer sentiment index will be published at 1500 BST.

In the corporate space, Invesco shares were in the green after the Wall Street Journal revealed that it was in discussions to merge with State Street's asset management unit.

No major earnings were slated for release on Friday.