Wall Street pointed to a slightly lower open on Thursday after China's industrial output expanded at its slowest rate in 17 years.
The data increases concern over the impact of the U.S.-China trade war on the health of the Chinese economy, as the two largest economies in the world are still working on a trade deal. A possible trade summit between Beijing and Washington has has been pushed back to April, Bloomberg reported.
Dow futures fell 67 points to 0.26% by 7:05 AM ET (11:05 GMT), while S&P 500 futures lost 5 points or 0.21% and tech-heavy NASDAQ 100 futures was down 7 points or 0.11%.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) was among the biggest movers in premarket trading, rising 0.5% as it plans to introduce its new car model aimed at the masses.
Meanwhile, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) was among the hardest hit, falling 2.3% after its Instagram app was down for several hours and amid reports that U.S. prosecutors are probing the social media giants data deals. Take-Two (NASDAQ:TTWO) slipped 2% as rumors that it could be acquired by Sony remained unconfirmed.
Boeing (NYSE:BA) inched down 0.09% as deliveries of its best-selling 737 Max jet were frozen after the U.S. finally joined a plethora of countries grounding the plane over safety concerns.
In other news, the U.K. parliament rejected the possibility of exiting the European Union without a deal.
With a new vote scheduled for 1:00 PM ET (17:00 GMT), the British parliament is widely expected to ask the EU to extend the March 29 deadline. “We now see a 60% chance (up from 55%) that a close variant of the prime minister's current Brexit deal is eventually ratified,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote, adding the probability of a no-deal Brexit had fallen to 5%.
On the economic front, initial jobless claims and export and import data is out at 8:30 AM ET (12:30 GMT), while new home sales data is released at 10:00 AM ET (14:00 GMT).
In commodities, Gold futures were down 0.8% to $1,298.25 a troy ounce, while crude oil slipped 0.4% to $58.04. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, rose 0.23% to 96.732.
-Reuters contributed to this report.
