NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Stocks looked to continue their slide on Monday, as a climb in the value of the Chinese yuan against the dollar raised new inflation concerns, while oil shed over $2.

U.S. stock futures were down in early trading, indicating a lower open for U.S. markets. The dollar fell as low as 7.9972 yuan, the first time it had breached the 8 yuan to a dollar benchmark, although it was back above the 8 yuan market in afternoon trading in Asia. The dollar also slipped further against the yen and the euro.

The June light crude futures contract for NYMEX was down $2.16 to $69.88 in electronic trading, while the June contract for Brent crude lost $2.05 to 70.27.

While many politicians and the economists have argued that the yuan was artificially low against the dollar, the decline in the U.S. currency sparked new inflation concerns at home, said Peter Cardillo, chief market strategist SW Bach. He said that was sparking the sell-off in stock futures, even as oil, other commodities and bond yields were all lower.

"There's a lot of fear of inflation," he said. "With the Producer Price Index and Consumer Price Index reports both due this week, I just think the fear out there now is a fear of inflation on the yuan strengthening. That is feeding into the realization that the Federal Reserve may continue to raise rates."

Gold and silver were both sharply lower in early trading, and oil prices fell in early trading following an estimate of lower demand for oil going forward late last week.

Major markets in Asia closed lower Monday as the weaker dollar hit the shares of exporters there. Major European markets also were down in early trading.

Treasury prices were higher, trimming the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 5.18 percent from the 5.20 percent level reached late Friday.

In corporate news, the Wall Street Journal reported that Boeing (Research) plans to pay $615 million to settle a Justice Department probe over procurement violations by its defense contracting business. Shares of the Dow component were down 0.6 percent in Frankfurt trading early Monday.

British drugmaker AstraZeneca (Research) is in talks to buy that country's biggest biotechnology company, Cambridge Antibody Technology Group (Research), the two companies confirmed over the weekend. The Sunday Times newspaper which said the deal would value the biotech at about $1.13 billion, a premium of over 40 percent to its closing share price on Friday.

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