us stock futures were again under pressure monday ahead of crucial inflation data and the start of secondquarter earnings season on friday the dow jones industrial average djia fell 187 points or 055 to 33735 the sp 500 spx declined 13 points or 029 to 4399 and the nasdaq composite dropped 18 points or 013 to 13661 stock futures were lower as the poor sentiment of recent sessions remained the sp 500 shed 12 last week as relatively robust economic data pushed bond yields tmubmusd10y toward cycle highs on expectations the federal reserve would need to keep raising borrowing costs as it continued to suppress inflation “markets are unable to shake of the shackles of interest rate rises which apparently have further to go with the resilience of the us economy and persistent inflation currently confirming the trend” said richard hunter head of markets at interactive investor consequently consumer price index data due on wednesday will be firmly in focus for traders analysts noted “due wednesday us inflation is expected to have fallen from 4 to around 3 in june with a possibly uptick in the monthly data but core inflation could prove stickier at around the 5 mark” said ipek ozkardeskaya senior analyst at swissquote bank “in all cases softening and ideally softerthanexpected inflation figures carry the potential of pushing the fed hawks back that could give quick support to the us stocks which ended the first week of july and the first week of h2 in the negative” she added not helping the mood monday was news out of china where data illustrating deflationary pressures cemented concerns that the world’s second biggest economy is struggling for traction such a negative narrative tends to be counteracted by accompanying hopes that the authorities in beijing will unleash more stimulus and so the reaction is nuanced hong kong’s hang seng hsi rose 06 but industrial commodities that are often tightly correlated to perceptions of chinese demand such as oil cl00 and copper hg00  are lower on the day another factor for traders to consider is the secondquarter us corporate earnings season which will kick into gear on friday when big banks such as jpmorgan chase jpm  citigroup c and wells fargo wfc present their numbers profits for the sp 500 are forecast to fall 64 though strip out the energy sector and the drop is just 07 according to refinitiv “there will be an outsized focus on ai given the moves in tech this year” said stephen innes managing partner at spi asset management “still the timing and ability of sp 500 companies to generate incremental profits from ai remain uncertain so management guidance and commentary will help investors identify ai’s enablers scalers and longterm beneficiaries” innes added us economic updates set for release on monday include may wholesale inventories at 10 am eastern there will be a number of fed officials making comments including fed vice chair barr at 10 am san francisco fed president daly and cleveland fed president mester at 11 am