* Disney slips as Barclays downgrades to ‘equal weight’
* Energy shares gain as Brent crude tops $85
* Futures down: Dow 0.36%, S&P 0.34%, Nasdaq 0.29%
Oct 18 (Reuters) - Wall Street’s main indexes were set to open lower on Monday as economic growth in China slowed, while a relentless surge in oil prices fueled concerns about elevated inflation.
Data showed China’s economy hit its slowest pace of growth in a year in the third quarter, hurt by power shortages and wobbles in the property sector.
“There is some weak data out of China, which is concerning on a global basis, and then market participants came into this earnings with a very pessimistic view but banks dramatically exceeded expectations,” said Thomas Hayes, managing member at Great Hill Capital Llc in New York.
“Now we are in the second week of earnings, which is more dependant on the general economy as a whole, so it is a ‘show me’ kind of market now.”
In the coming days, investors will keep a close eye on how Corporate America mitigates the impact on earnings from supply chain disruptions, labor shortages and higher costs, especially in the wake of rising oil prices.
Forecast-beating results from big U.S. lenders last week set a positive tone for third-quarter earnings season, with analysts expecting S&P 500 earnings to show a 32% rise from a year ago, according to Refinitiv data.
Johnson & Johnson, insurer Travelers, Netflix Inc, Verizon Communications, oilfield services cos Baker Hughes Co, Schlumberger NV, Tesla Inc and Intel Corp are some of the companies set to report quarterly results this week.
Among technology stocks, Google-parent Alphabet, Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc, Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc slipped between 0.2% and 0.5%.
Apple Inc also inched lower ahead of its event where the iPhone maker is expected to unveil new Mac laptop computers with more powerful processor chips.
Walt Disney fell 1.9% after Barclays downgraded the media giant’s stock to “equal weight” from “overweight”.
At 8:25 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 128 points, or 0.36%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 15 points, or 0.34%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 43.75 points, or 0.29%.
Oil firms including Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp rose 0.8% and 0.6%, respectively, as Brent crude oil hit its highest since October 2018.
Dynavax Technologies jumped 4.8% after French biotech company Valneva SE reported positive results from its late-stage trial of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate VLA2001, using company’s CpG 1018 adjuvant.
After better-than-expected September retail sales report on Friday, focus this week will also be on data related to housing starts, building permits, existing home sales, the Philly Fed index and Markit flash PMIs.
(Reporting by Devik Jain and Shreyashi Sanyal in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
Source: Reuters