Before the bell: U.S. stock futures slid

U.S. stock futures slid amid concern that growth in the world’s largest economy is faltering.

Sentiment surrounding the stock market remains sour. As such, stocks are expected to start the session with another loss, which would extend what is already a six-session slide. Given the recent progress in increasing the U.S. debt ceiling and instituting new fiscal measures, most of the market's recent weakness is being blamed on concerns that the U.S. economy remains mired in sluggish growth, especially after a lackluster GDP report on Friday and then a disappointing ISM Manufacturing reading yesterday. Today's data featured an unexpected decline in personal spending during June, despite a slight increase in income. Although there has been a bevy of quarterly earnings reports made available to participants, the absence of bellwethers and market movers has left many names in the lot to go unnoticed. Weakness among stocks has prompted some traders to pursue the relative safety of the dollar, which is presently up 0.2% against a basket of major foreign currencies. In a similar vein, gold prices have been pushed up more than 1% to a new record above $1640 per ounce, while silver has spiked 2.5% to about $40.27 per ounce.