08:32 am : [BRIEFING.COM] S&P futures vs fair value: -13.10. Nasdaq futures vs fair value: -15.30. Equity futures continue to trade lower with the S&P 500 futures down 1.0%.

The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 340,000, which was lower than the 348,000 that had been expected by the Briefing.com consensus. Today's tally was below the revised prior week count of 363,000. As for continuing claims, they fell to 2.912 million from 3.024 million.

08:00 am : [BRIEFING.COM] S&P futures vs fair value: -14.50. Nasdaq futures vs fair value: -18.80.

U.S. equity futures trade sharply lower with the S&P 500 futures down 1.0%. The overnight weakness follows a 7.3% plunge in Japan's Nikkei. Japanese stocks sold off amid continued volatility in Japanese Government Bond futures as the 10-yr yield spiked almost 16 basis points to 1.002 before retracing nearly all of its gains. In addition, the yen is notably stronger this morning with the USDJPY pair off by 140 pips at 101.80.

Looking at overnight developments:

• Asian markets finished lower across the board. In addition to the aforementioned 7.3% drop in the Nikkei, Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 2.5% while China's Shanghai Composite lost 1.1%.
  • In regional economic data:
    • China's HSBC Manufacturing PMI entered contraction as the flash reading revealed a decline to 49.60 from the prior 50.40 (50.50 consensus).
    • Singaporean GDP rose 0.2% year-over-year to follow the prior increase of 1.5% (-0.5% consensus). In addition, industrial production increased 4.7% year-over-year after the prior decline of 3.8% (+1.1% forecast).
  • Looking at news:
    • After Japanese Government Bond
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