US stock futures trade lower as China's growth slows

Equity futures are indicating a lower open when the markets resume on Tuesday on concerns about China’s growth.

U.S. markets are closed on Monday for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday.

Equity futures are trading in a shortened electronic session.The Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were lower Monday by 0.4 percent. The S&P 500 slipped 0.4 percent and the Nasdaq Composite was off 0.5 percent.

China's 2018 growth slowed to the lowest in nearly three decades, which puts pressure on Beijing to add more stimulus.

The economy cooled in the fourth quarter under pressure from lower domestic demand and the U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods.

Fourth-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) grew at the slowest pace since the global financial crisis, easing to 6.4 percent on-year as expected from 6.5 percent in the third quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday.

That pulled full-year growth down to 6.6 percent, the slowest annual pace since 1990.

In Asian markets on Monday, China’s Shanghai Composite ended the day 0.6 percent higher on hopes the government will added more stimulus to boost growth.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng also shrugged off the data to finished the day up 0.4 percent.

Japan’s Nikkei rose to more than a one-month high, adding 0.3 percent on the day.

In Europe, stocks closed out the day lower.  London’s FTSE traded off by 0.1 percent, Germany’s DAX was down 0.7 percent and France’s CAC slipped 0.3 percent.

Earnings season kicks into high gear this week, with six Dow companies and 56 members of the S&P 500 posting their October-through-December results. Among the big names we’ll hear from are IBM, Ford, Comcast, United Technologies and Intel.

U.S. stocks closed higher Friday -- their fourth consecutive weekly gain -- after China reportedly offered to increase its imports from America over a six-year-period to reduce the trade imbalance between the two nations.

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Equities also got a lift from a Wall Street Journal report that the Trump administration was considering rolling back tariffs on Chinese goods to ensure that current trade negotiations – set to end March 1 – are successful.

All three major equity averages have now climbed at least 10 percent since they bottomed on Christmas Eve. All three indexes have now notched their biggest four-week gain since 2011.