Future Pointing To Early Weakness On Wall Street

(RTTNews) - After seeing some strength last week, stocks are likely to move back to the downside in early trading on Monday. The major index futures are currently pointing to a moderately lower open for the markets, with the Dow futures down by 38 points.

Profit taking may contribute to some early weakness on Wall Street following the recent strength in the markets, which lifted the Dow and the S&P 500 to new record highs last week.

Selling pressure may also be generated by comments from Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei indicating that China won't dramatically alter its economic policy despite signs of downward pressure on growth.

Peter Boockvar, managing director at the Lindsey Group, said, "With the current slowdown in economic activity in China mostly due to the air coming out of the property market bubble, many assume Chinese officials will just provide another round of massive stimulus."

"Instead, however, we've gotten only small doses and it looks like that will be the most we'll see as China realizes that it must wean itself off the vicious cycle of stimulus, slowdown, stimulus, slowdown, etc.," he added.

Not long after the open, trading could be impacted by the National Association of Realtors' report on existing home sales in the month of August. Economists expect existing home sales to come in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.18 million units.

Existing home sales rose 2.4 percent month-over-month in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.15 million units, the best level since September 2013.