US Stock Futures Suggest Mixed Start; Pending Homes Sales Data, Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey Due

Monday marks the penultimate day of trading for 2013 and, while stock futures signal a mixed beginning to the trading session, markets are expected to sustain the rally at least through the end of the year.

Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.02 percent and futures on the S&P 500 were up 0.01 percent while those on the Nasdaq 100 were down 0.01 percent.

“There are clear expectations the market is going to rally and will continue to do that through the end of the year. There is also an institutional imperative at the end of the year to be fully invested,” Brad McMillan, chief investment officer at Waltham, Mass.-based Commonwealth Financial Network, told MarketWatch.

On the data front, the pending home sales index for November is expected at 10 a.m. EST. The Dallas Federal Reserve’s manufacturing survey for December is scheduled to be released at 10:30 a.m. EST, and the business activity index is expected to shoot up to 4.0 from a 1.9 reading in the previous month, according to a Wall Street Journal consensus estimate.

In Europe, markets were mostly flat to negative with the Stoxx Europe 600 index trading down 0.06 percent while the FTSE 100 was down 0.12 percent. Germany’s DAX-30 was down 0.07 percent while France's CAC-40 was down 0.05 percent.

In Asia, markets saw mixed results. Japan’s Nikkei ended the day up 0.7 percent while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 ended in positive territory, up 0.61 percent. The Shanghai Composite index slipped 0.18 percent while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was nearly flat, ending up 0.01 percent. South Korea’s KOSPI Composite index ended the day up 0.45 percent while India’s BSE Sensex was down 0.24 percent.