TORONTO -- An overnight drop in stock prices in Asia and Europe provides a dismal backdrop for the first trading day of 2016.
The Dow Jones futures were down 287 points at 17,054.0, the S&P 500 futures declined 32.4 points to 2,003.0 and the Nasdaq futures fell 89.0 points to 4,498.8 shortly before the North American market open.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 was down 147.99 points at 6,094.33, the DAX fell 429.30 to 10,313.71 and the CAC 40 dropped 116.97 to 4,520.09 about an hour before the Toronto and U.S. markets opened Monday.
The plunge began on the Shanghai index, which dived 6.9 per cent to 3,296.66, before the market was closed early to avert steeper falls. It was the first time China used a new "circuit breaker" mechanism.
The Canadian dollar traded at 71.89 cents US, down 0.36 from Thursday's close before the New Year holiday.
On the commodity markets, the February gold contract was up $16.50 to US$1,076.70 an ounce, the February crude contract was up 67 cents at US$37.71 per barrel and the January contract for natural gas was down three cents at US$2.30
