Stock futures slump as weak Chinese data adds to growth fears

[August 21, 2015]  By Tanya Agrawal

(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures fell sharply on Friday, with the S&P 500 mini futures falling to their weakest level since early February, as more alarming data from China spooked investors already fraught with concerns over global growth.

* The data from China showed its giant manufacturing sector slowing at the fastest pace since the depths of the financial crisis in 2009, confirming the worries about its health that have preying on economist's minds for months.

* That decline comes on the heels of weaker-than-expected data in July, plus this month's turbulent changes in the yuan and a brutal stock market plunge. Shanghai stocks <.SSEC> dropped another 4 percent on Friday.

* World stock markets tumbled towards their worst week of the year on Friday and commodities had another bruising day.

* U.S. oil prices were headed for their eighth consecutive week of falls, the longest losing streak since 1986, with both global oil benchmarks nearing 6-1/2-year lows.

* Wall Street had tumbled on Thursday, with the S&P 500 and the Dow closing in the red for the year, on concerns that the decelerating Chinese economy would translate into slower global growth.

* Concerns regarding China and a U.S. inflation rate below the expected target has caused some investors to scale back bets that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in September.

* Dow component Apple's <AAPL.O> shares resumed their fall and decreased 1.2 percent to $111.31 in premarket trading, a day after a Gartner report on China's slowing smartphone sales.

* Deere fell 1.6 percent to $26.84 after the maker of John Deere tractors, reported a 40 percent fall in quarterly profit.

* Hewlett-Packard fell 1.9 percent to $26.84, a day after it reported a drop in revenue for the fourth straight quarter.

* Salesforce.com  rose 3.9 percent to $70.50 after it raised its revenue forecast for the full year for the third time.

Futures snapshot at 7:05 a.m. ET:

* S&P 500 e-minis were down 4.25 points, or 0.21 percent, with 399,376 contracts traded.

* Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 18 points, or 0.41 percent, on volume of 55,049 contracts.

* Dow e-minis were down 62 points, or 0.37 percent, with 51,684 contracts changing hands.

(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)

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