Investing.com – Wall Street futures pointed to a slightly lower open on Monday as U.S. stocks hovered near record highs and investors looked ahead to a string of data on business activity out later in the session and gave a muted response to another terrorist attack in London over the weekend.
The blue-chip Dow futures slipped 23 points, or 0.11%, at 7:05AM ET (11:05GMT), the S&P 500 futures dropped 3 points, or 0.13%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures lost 8 points, or 0.14%.
The three major U.S. indices all closed at record highs on Friday and looked set to take a breather at the start of the week as market players awaited a string of economic reports.
Monday will see services PMI data for May released at 9:45AM ET (13:45GMT), while ISM non-manufacturing data for May and factory orders for April are both scheduled for 10:00AM ET (14:00GMT).
On the company front, investors looked ahead to Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) Worldwide Developers Conference with chief executive Tim Cook set to kick off the event at 1:00PM ET (17:00GMT).
Herbalife (NYSE:HLF) tumbled 5.5% in pre-market trade Monday as the firm cut its sales guidance.
In M&A activity, DR Horton (NYSE:DHI) offered to buy 75% of real estate development company Forestar Group (NYSE:FOR). The U.S. homebuilder's offer of $16.25 per share tops a $14.25 bid by Starwood Capital Group.
U.S. private equity group Blackstone (NYSE:BX) said it would acquire the Finnish real estate investment firm Sponda (HE:SDA1V) for about €1.8 billion ($2.0 billion).
Elsewhere, markets seemed mostly unfazed by news of a weekend terrorist attack in central London that killed 7 and wounded 48 people.
Cable had recovered from initial losses by European midday trading and London’s FTSE traded only marginally lower on Monday.
Also grabbing headlines, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt severed their ties with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of supporting terrorism, in an unprecedented breach between the most powerful members of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
The coordinated move dramatically escalates a dispute over Qatar's support of the Muslim Brotherhood, the world's oldest Islamist movement, and adds accusations that Doha even backs the agenda of regional arch-rival Iran.
Qatari stocks plunged in response to the news, with Doha's QE General Index tumbling roughly 8%, its worst daily losses since the 2009 financial crisis.
Initially, crude prices moved more than 1% higher, but buying enthusiasm had faded by early morning North American traded.
Growing concern over rising shale production in the U.S. also continued to put bearish pressure on crude prices.
Data from energy services company Baker Hughes showed on Friday that U.S. drillers last week added rigs for the 20th week in a row, the longest such streak on record, implying that further gains in domestic production are ahead.
The U.S. rig count rose by 11 to 733, extending a year-long drilling recovery to the highest level since April 2015.
U.S. crude futures fell 0.36% to $47.49 by 7:06AM ET (11:06GMT), while Brent oil lost 0.46% to $49.72.