US pre-open: Futures point to losses following weaker-than-expected Chinese data

Wall Street futures were in the red ahead of the bell on Monday after data out of China showed the Asian nation's economy was slowing down at a faster-than-expected rate.

As of 1230 BST, Dow Jones futures were down 0.24%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures were trading 0.23% and 0.22% lower, respectively.

The Dow Jones closed 15.53 points higher on Friday as the blue-chip index and the S&P 500 both saw out the week with muted gains.

In focus ahead of the bell on Monday, China's retail sales grew 8.5% year-on-year in July, below the 11.5% expected by economists, with online sales gaining just 4.4% last month, while Chinese industrial production increased 6.4%, also shy of estimates of 7.8%, with China's National Bureau of Statistics noting the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and domestic flooding meant the country's economic recovery was "still unstable and uneven".

Futures also lost ground on the back of talks that the Federal Reserve will announce a tapering of its bond purchases in September and kick off the reduction in buying shortly thereafter after.

Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari stated he would "feel comfortable" with tapering asset purchases if he was to witness "a few more jobs reports like the one we just got". He also highlighted that the central bank must "pay attention" to the inflation side of its dual mandate".

An ongoing surge in the number of cases of the Covid-19 Delta variant and the Taliban's claiming of Kabul were also both weighing on sentiment.

On the macro front, August's Empire State manufacturing index will be published at 1330 BST, while foreign bond investment numbers and overall net capital outflow figures for June will follow at 2100 BST.

No major corporate earnings were slated for release on Monday.