U.S. stock index futures were little changed on Monday as investors looked for new reasons to buy following a rally that repeatedly took major indexes to record levels.
The S&P 500 has risen for five of the past six weeks despite Friday's disappointing payroll report, which came in lower than expected.
While the report showed that hiring slowed in July, some investors were encouraged by the idea that the report meant the U.S. Federal Reserve was more likely to hold steady with its monetary stimulus policy, which it said it would slow if economic growth met its targets this year.
The program has contributed to gains of almost 20% in the S&P this year. The index is up 7.4% over the past six weeks, suggesting further gains may be harder to come by at current levels. European shares rose 0.4%, boosted by optimism the Fed's policy would continue.
Investors were also looking ahead to the Institute for Supply Management's July reading on the services sector, set for release later on Monday. The non-manufacturing index is seen coming in at 53, slightly over the previous month's read of 52.2.
U.S. shares of HSBC Holdings Plc fell 4.4% to $55.44 in premarket trading after the company reported a drop in revenue, hurt by a deceleration in emerging markets.
S&P 500 futures fell 1.2 point and were below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 10 points and Nasdaq 100 futures dipped 0.25 points.
Of the 391 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings for the second quarter, 67.8% have topped analyst expectations, in line with the average beat over the past four quarters, data from Thomson Reuters showed. About 55% have reported revenue above estimates, more than in the past four quarters but below the historical average.
In company news, U.S.-listed shares of Compugen Ltd jumped 65% to $9.03 in premarket trading after the company announced it would enter a cancer research partnership with Bayer AG.
Analysts said that millions of Time Warner Cable subscribers in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas could be without CBS Corp programming for several weeks as the companies appear no closer to settling a fee dispute.
Raytheon Co is poised to book billions of dollars worth of orders for its Patriot air and missile defense system in the coming months, underscoring the resurgence of a weapon first developed to defend Europe against a possible Soviet attack.
