After the long Independence Day weekend, futures indicated a lower open for Wall Street as second thoughts about the U.S. economy's recovery spooked investors after last week's worse-than-expected nonfarm payrolls numbers.
Oil prices plunged, with the price of US light, sweet crude dropping more than $3 to below $64 a barrel as concerns mounted over the strength of consumers.
Comments from U.S. Vice President Joe Biden over the weekend fueled investors concerns as he said the Obama administration "misread" the depth of the economic troubles it inherited and still expects more new jobs in the long term as the spending pace from the $787 billion stimulus plan quickens.
- Dow 30: Extra-Hours Quotes
- Pre-Markets/Futures Data
Wells Fargo plans to expand its securities business, according to a Wall Street Journal report that said Wells Fargo Securities would offer merger advice, stock and bond underwriting, loan syndications and fixed-income trading. Shares lost nearly 1 percent in light premarket trading.
In other corporate news, global miner Rio Tinto agreed on Monday to sell its Americas food-packaging assets for $1.2 billion to packaging group Bemis , raising yet more much-needed cash for the indebted miner. Rio shares dropped 5.6 percent premarket.
UBS was in focus as the company has lost its place as the world's leading wealth manager to Bank of America, according to a survey by specialist consultancy Scorpio Partnership. At the same time, UBS said it was committed to its US brokerage, but shares fell 3.4 percent premarket.
In a related matter, BofA said it approved about $713 million in dividend payments to the government on the $15 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program funds the bank received. BofA shares edged lower as the Scorpio survey also indicated another tough year for the industry overall.
Asian and European stocks fell as worries over earnings season came to the forefront. Dow component Alcoa kicks off the second-quarter earnings season after the closing bell on Wednesday.
One story that broke late Sunday may be helping market sentiment to some degree: a bankruptcy court judge has approved General Motors'plan to sell its assets to a so-called "new GM". That paves the way for GM to emerge from bankruptcy with most of the assets and only some of the liabilities of the "old GM".
The government will have about a 61 percent stake in the "new GM", with the Canadian government holding about a 12 percent stake. The rest will be owned by a UAW retiree health care trust and unsecured bondholders.
The Institute for Supply Management releases its non-manufacturing index, a measure of the nation's service economy, at 10 am New York time. Economists expect the index to come in at 46 for June, which would be an improvement over May's reading of 44, though still below the 50 mark which divides expansion and contraction.
Investors will focus later this week on a meeting of the G8 industrial nations. The summit was expected to highlight signs that economies were stabilizing, but emphasize that it was too early yet to withdraw policy stimulus.
And President Barack Obama arrived in Russia for a summit with President Dmitry Medvedev, during which John Deere , PepsiCo and Boeing will announce more than $1.5 billion worth of deals in the country.
— Peter Schacknow, Senior Producer, CNBC Breaking News Desk, contributed to this report.