US Stock Futures Point To Positive Open; Earnings, Home Sales Data In Focus

Stock futures pointed to a positive opening on Monday after one of the worst weeks for U.S. and world markets in a long time.

Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.03 percent while futures on the S&P 500 were up 0.21 percent and those on the Nasdaq were up 0.12 percent. Last week, the Dow fell nearly 2 percent for its worst weekly performance since November 2011 while the S&P 5oo and the Nasdaq both fell more than 2 percent.

On the earnings front, Monday’s calendar includes Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) before markets open while Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and United States Steel Corp. (NYSE:X) are among those scheduled to declare earnings after market hours.

Data on new home sales in the month of December are due at 10 a.m. EST and a Wall Street Journal estimate pegs the number to be at 450,000 -- down from 464,000 in the previous month. Also on the economic calendar is the Dallas Federal Reserve's survey of manufacturing companies in Texas for January, which is scheduled to be released at 10:30 a.m.

In Europe, stocks continued to be weak despite upbeat IFO data from Germany. The Stoxx Europe 600 index was down 0.84 percent while the FTSE 100 was down 1.28 percent. Germany’s DAX-30 was down 0.43 percent while France's CAC-40 was down 0.42 percent.

Weakness persisted in Asia too where Japan’s Nikkei fell steeply to end the day down 2.51 percent. The Shanghai Composite index dropped 1.03 percent while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index plunged 2.11 percent. South Korea’s Kospi was down 1.56 percent and India’s BSE Sensex also fell steeply to end the day down 2.02 percent.