US Stock Futures Down; McDonald's Earnings, Jobless Claims Data In Focus

US stock futures declined in early pre-market trade, ahead of earnings from McDonald's

. Data on weekly jobless claims will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET, while the Markit PMI manufacturing index (flash) for January will be released at 8:58 a.m. ET. Data on existing home sales for December, the FHFA house price index for November and the Conference Board's index of leading indicators for December will be released at 10:00 a.m. ET. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 59 points to 16,258.00, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index futures declined 5.50 points to 1,833.10. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index fell 1.50 points to 3,619.00.

European markets were mostly lower today, with the Spanish Ibex Index gaining 0.34%, London's FTSE 100 index dropping 0.13% and STOXX Europe 600 Index falling 0.08%. German DAX 30 index declined 0.14% and French CAC 40 Index fell 0.02%. The euro-zone current account surplus widened to 23.5 billion euros ($32.0 billion) in November, versus a revised surplus of EUR22.2 billion in October. Germany's preliminary composite PMI climbed to 55.9 in January versus 55.0 in December, according to data firm Markit. Asian markets ended mostly lower today. Japan's Nikkei Stock Average fell 0.79%, China's Shanghai Composite dropped 0.47%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index tumbled 1.51% and India's BSE Sensex gained 0.17%. The flash reading of the HSBC/Markit China manufacturing PMI declined to 49.6 in January, versus a final reading of 50.5 in December.

Analysts at Morgan Stanley downgraded TAL Education Group

from “overweight” to “equal-weight.” The target price for TAL Education Group has been raised from $17.60 to $25.60. TAL Education's shares closed at $25.61 yesterday.