US Stock Futures Signal Lower Start On Wall Street

US stock futures are lower this morning, as debt fears moved to Italy. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 86 points to 12,529.00 and futures on the S&P 500 stock index fell 12.50 points to 1,329.30. Nasdaq 100 futures declined 24.00 points to 2,384.50. US stocks closed lower on Friday, with the Dow Jones industrial average dropping 0.49% to 12,657.20, the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index declining 0.70% to 1,343.80 and the NASDAQ composite index dipping 0.45% to 2,859.81. Lonza Group Ltd has agreed to buy Arch Chemicals Inc ARJ for $47.20 per share in cash. Wall Street expects Alcoa Inc AA to report its Q2 EPS at $0.34 on revenue of $6.32 billion. Most Asian markets ended lower, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average dropping 0.6727%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 moving down 1.47% and China's Shanghai Composite gaining 0.18%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 1.6685% and India's Sensex dipped 0.72%. European markets were lower today. The STOXX Europe 600 Index has dropped 0.66%, London's FTSE 100 Index moved down 0.23%, German DAX 30 index fell 0.93% and France CAC 40 index fell 1.33%. Meanwhile, top European Union officials are meeting on Monday to discuss the debt crisis. The dollar index (DXY) rose 0.8% to 75.683. The euro dropped 0.6% against the dollar to trade at $1.4121.