Wall Street is set to open lower on Tuesday, following in the footsteps of the European and Japanese stock markets, in the wake of a three-day weekend and after coming close to new record highs last week.

Half an hour before the opening, futures contracts on New York's main indices were down by an average of 0.4%, heralding a red start to the session.

The S&P 500 index had gained 1.9% last week to break back through the 4,800-point barrier and come within a few points of its all-time record set in January 2022.

Today, the trend is suffering from the reversal of the upward trend on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, where the Nikkei has just ended a series of six consecutive sessions of gains that had seen it set a new 34-year record above 36,000 points.

The mixed results published this morning by two major banking groups, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, did nothing to boost the stock market.

Goldman is expected to report no major changes, despite having exceeded consensus expectations in the fourth quarter, thanks to the strength of its wealth management and asset management businesses.

But Morgan Stanley is expected to start the session down by almost 3%, its quarterly accounts having been burdened by a series of exceptional charges.

European markets were also trading on a weak note as Wall Street opened: the Euro STOXX gave up 0.5%, as did the FTSE 100 in London and the DAX in Frankfurt.

On the macroeconomic front in the US, the Empire State index sank further into the red zone in January, at -43.7, its lowest since May 2020, compared with -14.5 the previous month.

But it is the retail sales figures for December, due tomorrow, which will be the key to assessing the strength of consumer spending over the Christmas period, and therefore the health of the economy.

On the bond front, the yield on 10-year Treasuries continues to yo-yo around the 4% mark, which it broke through today after dropping below it before the weekend.

The dollar gained 1.2% against the euro, which returned to 1.0880, a sign of growing risk aversion after the excesses of late 2023.

On the oil market, crude prices were little changed, with US light crude consolidating by 0.1% at $72.6.

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