(Sharecast News) - Wall Street futures were in the red ahead of the opening bell on Tuesday as a shortened trading week began with investors focused on rising geopolitical and trade tensions, while a renewed surge in oil prices added to inflation worries.
As of 1230 BST, Dow Jones futures were down 0.79%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.26% and 0.01% softer, respectively.
The Dow closed 271.86 points lower on Friday, before investors took a break on Monday to celebrate the Labor Day long weekend.
Futures edged lower as crude extended its recent rally, with Brent up 1.6% at $98.58 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate climbing 2.7% to $93.95 a barrel after the US and Iran exchanged strikes over the weekend. The jump in energy prices has pushed Treasury yields higher, with the benchmark 10‑year note up roughly one and a half basis points at 4.804% after hitting its strongest level since November 2023 last week.
Traders were also zeroed in on fresh tensions between Washington and Ottawa as Canada's retaliatory tariffs on around $20bn of US goods came into effect on Tuesday, while Donald Trump warned that Bombardier would be barred from selling aircraft in the US unless production was moved stateside. "NO MORE SELLING BOMBARDIER IN THE UNITED STATES!" Trump said on social media.
On the macro front, the National Federation of Independent Business' US small business optimism index slipped to 98.7 in August, down from 99.8 in July, undershooting forecasts for a softer decline to 99.3. Actual sales weakened, with a net ‑9% of owners reporting higher nominal sales over the past three months - the lowest reading since November 2025. Reports of inflation as the single most important problem rose to 16%, now tied with taxes as the second‑most cited issue. Concerns around labour quality or availability and labour costs eased, with labour‑cost worries falling to their lowest level since March 2021, while expectations for better business conditions deteriorated.
In the corporate space, FedEx and GameStop were both slated to report quarterly earnings after the close.
Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com