Indications: U.S. stock futures trim decline after N.Y. data

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By Polya Lesova and Kate Gibson, MarketWatch

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock futures trimmed their losses Monday after data illustrating stepped-up manufacturing activity in the New York region helped to offset lower-than-expected second-quarter growth in Japan.

Dollar should become even more attractive

The New York Federal Reserve reported its Empire State manufacturing index rebounded a bit to 7.1 in August from 5.1 in July. While an improvement, the climb was less than expected.

Still, the rebound in the overall index "is encouraging," said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak.

Down 30 points before the report, futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were lately off 13 points at 10,253.00 in its wake. S&P 500 futures dropped 2.10 points to 1,074.00, while

Nasdaq 100 futures declined 2 points to 1,813.25.

The Dow /quotes/comstock/10w!i:dji/delayed (DJIA 10,314, +10.75, +0.10%) finished lower Friday and declined 3.3% on the week, snapping a three-week winning streak as global economic worries soured investor sentiment.

On the corporate front, Dell Inc. /quotes/comstock/15*!dell/quotes/nls/dell (DELL 12.00, -0.01, -0.08%) announced it would pay $18 a share in cash to buy Fremont, Calif.-based storage technology firm 3Par Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!par/quotes/nls/par (PAR 18.00, +8.35, +86.53%) .

Lowe's Cos. /quotes/comstock/13*!low/quotes/nls/low (LOW 19.99, +0.40, +2.04%) said its second-quarter earnings rose to 58 cents a share from 51 cents a share in the year-ago period. On average, analysts polled by FactSet Research expected the home-improvement retailer to earn 59 cents a share. Read about Lowe's results.

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In Tokyo, stocks posted losses after data showed that Japan's gross domestic product rose at an annualized pace of just 0.4% in real terms in the April-June quarter, much worse than the 2.3% growth expected by economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires. Read more about Tokyo markets.

European shares traded mostly lower, with the Stoxx Europe 600 index /quotes/comstock/22c!sxxp (ST:SXXP 255.35, -0.21, -0.08%) down 0.5% in afternoon trade.

Shares of miner Vedanta Resources /quotes/comstock/23s!e:ved (UK:VED 2,153, +100.00, +4.87%) rallied 6% after the company announced plans to buy as much as 60% of oil producer Cairn India.

The dollar fell against most major rivals, with the euro trading up 0.5% to $1.2812. The dollar index /quotes/comstock/11j!i:dxy0 (DXY 82.38, -0.57, -0.69%) dropped 0.4% to 82.586.

Elsewhere in the markets, German bund futures rose to a record, buoyed by safe-haven demand amid new concerns about sovereign debt in the periphery of the euro zone.

U.S.-listed shares of Irish banks were under pressure, with Allied Irish Banks PLC /quotes/comstock/13*!aib/quotes/nls/aib (AIB 2.14, -0.04, -1.83%) down 2.8% and Bank of Ireland /quotes/comstock/13*!ire/quotes/nls/ire (IRE 4.03, -0.09, -2.18%) down 5.8% in premarket trade.

Oil futures gained 15 cents to $75.54 a barrel in electronic trading on Globex.

Gold futures rose $10.90 to $1,227.60 an ounce.

Polya Lesova is MarketWatch's London bureau chief. Kate Gibson is a reporter for MarketWatch, based in New York.

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