Equity futures are flat as Wall Street focuses on the tense debt ceiling negotiations

European stocks lacked direction on Monday morning as investors awaited the latest news on US debt ceiling talks, with the Stoxx 600 up 0.07% at 8:12 a.m. London time.

Mining, oil and gas, and banking stocks suffered the worst losses, all of which fell by about 0.5%.

Household goods and healthcare were more optimistic, rising 0.5%.

Germany’s DAX is down 0.12% from its record close on Friday, while France’s CAC is down 0.08%. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.25%.

Japan’s core machinery orders fell 3.9% in March from the previous month, falling more than expected.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected the reading to rise by 0.7% on a monthly basis.

Compared to last year, orders for machines also decreased by 3.5%, against expectations for a print increase of 1.4%.

Japanese machinery orders rose 9.8% year-on-year in February.

– Jihe Lee

The China Cyberspace Administration has banned operators of China’s “critical information infrastructure” from purchasing products from US memory manufacturer Micron.

This comes as a file The Cyberspace Administration of China said that Micron products had failed a network security review, citing “potentially serious network security issues”.

This, she added, “poses a significant security risk to China’s critical information infrastructure supply chain and affects [its] National Security.”

The Cyberspace Administration did not specify which products would be banned or what security issues Micron products had with their release.

Shares of Micron’s South Korean rivals rose Monday morning after the announcement, with SK Hynix up 1.54% and Samsung Electronics up 0.5%.

– Lim Hwi Ji

the People’s Bank of China Benchmark lending rates were left unchanged for the ninth consecutive month.

China left the one-year loan prime rate unchanged at 3.65% and the five-year loan prime rate unchanged at 4.30%, in line with expectations of economists polled by Reuters.

The Chinese inland yuan fell 0.2% to 7.0205 against the US dollar.

– Jihe Lee

Bank of America strategist Savita Subramanian raised her year-end target for the S&P 500 to 4,300 from 4,000 Sunday night.

The new target is more than 2% above where the index closed on Friday. Subramanian said in a note that the recent focus on efficiency from the big companies should help make earnings more stable going forward.

For more information on this call and other Wall Street forecasts, check out the CNBC Pro.

– Jesse Pound

Federal leaders are expected to continue negotiations on the US debt ceiling on Monday as the country approaches a default.

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., are scheduled to meet in person at the White House.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday that “hard choices” will have to be made about which notes won’t be repaid if the debt ceiling is not raised, and reiterated her warning that the US could default on its debt as early as June 1,

– Jesse Pound, Ashley Cabot

Stock futures were lower Sunday night, with Dow futures down about 0.2% and S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures losing about 0.3%.

– Jesse Pound