US pre-open: Futures slightly lower as traders await tech earnings, key data releases

(Sharecast News) - Wall Street futures were trading slightly lower ahead of the bell on Monday as market participants stare down the barrel of a week filled with big-name earnings and major economic data. As of 1245 BST, Dow Jones futures were down 0.13%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.27% and 0.26% softer, respectively.

The Dow closed just 20.10 points higher on Friday, leaving the blue-chip index on course for a losing month in April.

Investors will be zeroed in on quarterly earnings reports from "Magnificent Seven" tech giants Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms and Microsoft this week, as well as numbers from the likes of soft-drinks behemoth Coca-Cola, credit card services firm Visa and drugmaker Eli Lilly.

Also of note, the S&P 500 was on track to deliver its worst performance over the first 100 days of a new presidency in more than half a century, with the index down almost 8% since Trump's inauguration on 20 January despite his promise of a "boom like no other" amid ongoing tariff uncertainty, mass layoffs of Federal employees, and an aggressive stance on undocumented workers.

On the macro front for Monday, the Dallas Federal Reserve's April manufacturing business index will be published at 1530 BST.

Later this week, attention will be on Wednesday's Q1 GDP reading and March's personal consumption expenditures index, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, while Friday's non-farm payrolls data will likely be the week's primary focus.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com