Stocks - U.S. Futures Tick Lower After Bleak Data

Investing.com - U.S. futures were lower on Tuesday as data from Asia confirmed that the global economy is continuing to slow down.

Nasdaq 100 futures fell 19 points or 0.3% by 6:42 AM ET (10:42 GMT), while Dow futures lost 37 points or 0.1% and S&P 500 futures were down 4 points or 0.2%.

Data overnight showed that Chinese producer prices fell at its fastest rate in three years in August, while orders to machine tool makers in Japan fell to their lowest level since 2009.

U.S.-China trade tensions have yet to be resolved, making it more likely the U.S. economy will enter a recession, analysts at Deutsche Bank (DE:DBKGn) said.

"Recent data suggest that trade tensions may already be moving the economy close to a tipping point," the analysts wrote. "It is now our view that at this point, only a meaningful de-escalation or reversal of trade tensions is likely to be enough to short-circuit this downtrend."

There was also gloomy news closer to home, as the NFIB index of confidence at small businesses fell to its lowest in five months.

Technology stocks were lower in premarket trade, with Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) inching down 0.1%, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) falling 0.5% and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) down 0.7%.

Facebook and Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) were in focus on news that the tech companies face four separate antitrust investigations in an effort to look into whether or not the bigger technology firms should be broken up. Across the Atlantic, the European Union confirmed that it had reappointed Margrete Vestager, who has led imposed some punitive fines on U.S. tech giants over the last five years, for another terms as antitrust commissioner.

Elsewhere, UBS Group (NYSE:UBS) jumped 2.4%, while Seadrill (NYSE:SDRL) gained 8.4%.

In commodities, crude oil rose 0.6% to $58.19 a barrel. Gold futures were down 0.6% to $1,501.85 a troy ounce, while the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was up 0.1% to 98.403.

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