U.S. Stock Futures Track Global Rout, Retail Sales Loom

U.S. stock futures fell in early trading on Thursday, as deep losses pummeled Asia markets and Europe also fell sharply on unease over the prospect of a pullback in central bank easy money policies. Adding downside weight, the World Bank cut its global growth forecast.

A busy data day includes weekly jobless claims and a key retail sales report that's expected to show a rebound in spending.

In choppy action, futures for the Dow industrials fell 70 points, or 0.5%, to 14908, while those for the Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 8.2 points, or 0.5%, to 1601.70. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index fell 12.75 points, or 0.4%, to 2907.50.

"The long-awaited selloff in global markets is finally here after the stellar performances of equities in the first quarter of the year," said Ishaq Siddiqi, market strategist with ETX Capital, in a note.

"This selloff most certainly has momentum as there seems little to suggest that the Fed will not taper stimulus and the ECB has demonstrated greater unwillingness to respond with measures to stimulate the euro zone and the BOJ stood firm on not adding more QE on Tuesday," he said.

The Nikkei Stock Average plunged 6.4%, its sixth loss in seven days with exporters pounded as the dollar fell as low as 93.76 yen in the Asia session. China stocks also returned from a string of holidays to lose more than 2%.

Global sentiment was dented after the World Bank cut its global economic-growth forecast to 2.2% for 2013 growth, down from a 2.4% projection issued in January.

More direction for the Fed may come from the data calendar for Thursday. The most-watched indicator will be retail sales due at 8:30 a.m. EDT, which is forecast to rise 0.5% in May after a 0.1% uptick in April.

At the same time, weekly jobless claims are due for release, along with import prices for May, which are forecast to fall 0.2%. At 10 a.m. EDT, the Commerce Department will issue inventories data.

Wall Street stocks tumbled on Wednesday, with the Dow industrials marking their third-straight loss, the first time that has happened this year. After rising 119 points, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 126.79 points, or 0.8%, lower to 14995.23.

The S&P 500 index lost 13.61 points, or 0.8%, to 1612.52.

Some analysts remain upbeat on stocks, despite the recent setback.

"We remain bullish on global equities and see this current pullback as part of the choppy transition from extreme, reflationary monetary policy and crisis management, to a more "normal" world of self-sustaining growth and higher rates," said analysts at UBS in a note. They added that they'd look to financials and tech stocks for outperformance, and downgraded telecoms and energy.

Outside of Asia, Europe stocks were also seeing heavy losses, with the Stoxx Europe 600 index down 1.4%, and the German DAX 30 index dropping 2% to fall below 8,000 for the first time since early May.

Gold and oil prices also declined.

Write to Barbara Kollmeyer at [e-mail]

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