U.S. and European stock indexes are mixed ahead of tomorrow's European Central Bank meeting as global growth concerns persist.
S&P 500 futures are off 1.90 points to 1402.50 after trading as low as 1397.50 overnight. Nasdaq 100 contracts are lower by 7.75 points to 2766.75 at the time of this writing.
In Europe, the U.K. FTSE 100 is down 0.42 percent but the German DAX is up 0.31 percent. The euro/dollar is lower by 0.1 percent to 1.256 after economic data from China and Australia indicated that growth is slowing further.
Asian indexes closed lower, led by a 1.47 drop in Hong Kong's Hang Seng and a 1.09 percent decline in Japan's Nikkei 225. The Australian dollar/Japanese yen cross trade, which is highly correlated to equity indexes, is lower by 0.5 percent to 79.87 after hitting a two-month low.
Commodity markets are exectedly lower, with crude oil futures down 0.28 points, or 0.29 percent, to 95 even. Spot gold prices are off 3.30 points, or 0.19 percent, to 1692.50 after trading as low as 1689.60. Copper prices are off 0.1 percent to 3.4655.
In company-specific news, FedEx is down 2.9 percent in pre-market trading after projecting its first quarterly earnings decline in more than two years. Facebook is up about 2.8 percent after CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he does not plan to sell any shares for more than a year.
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