China, economy to send stocks tumbling

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A major selloff in Chinese stocks, an attack at an U.S. military base in Afghanistan that Vice President Dick Cheney and concern about the U.S. economy were set to plague Wall Street at Tuesday's open.

At 8:36 a.m. ET, Nasdaq and S&P futures were down.

Markets in Asia were battered by a sell-off in China as the Shanghai Composite index plunged 8.8 percent, with many leading companies hitting their limit of a 10 percent decline. Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed 1.8 percent lower.

Major indexes in Europe also fell on the Asian sell-off.

Cheney was reported uninjured in the attack Tuesday by a Taliban suicide bomber, although some two dozen people were injured or killed outside the main U.S. military base in Bagram, Afghanistan, north of the capital Kabulwere. There were conflicting reports on the death toll. (More on the attack at CNN.com)

Futures fell after the reports of the attack early Tuesday.

"It looks like investors are focusing on geopolitical concerns again," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist with Avalon Partners. "The Chinese sharp decline is spilling over. And while nothing really happened with Cheney, that is again highlighting geopolitical concerns."

Cardillo said there is also growing concern among investors about a weakening U.S. economy.

A busy week for economic readings started with a much weaker than expected reading durable goods orders, which fell 7.8 percent in January, much worse than the forecast of a 3 percent decline and far below the revised 2.8 percent gain in December. Futures fell further on the report.

The report will be followed at 10 a.m ET. by readings on existing home sales and consumer confidence.

The pace of home sales is forecast to be narrowly higher at an annual rate of 6.24 million, compared to 6.22 million in December, while the Conference Board's consumer confidence index is forecast to slip to 109 in February from the five-year high of 110.3 in January.

Economists and investors will likely to be looking ahead to the government's revision in the fourth quarter gross domestic product, the broad measure of the nation's economic activity, set to be released Wednesday.

There is growing concern that GDP will be revised sharply lower than the 3.5 percent annual growth rate in the initial reading for the period. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com are now forecasting the revision will come in at 2.3 percent.

"GDP is the big report this week, but people are also looking ahead to the jobs report next week," Cardillo said.

In U.S. corporate news, Apple (Charts) announced it will delay until mid-March its Apple TV device for playing computer-based video on television sets, the company announced after-hours Monday. Shares of Apple lost nearly 1 percent in Frankfurt trading early Tuesday.

Wal-Mart Stores (Charts) agreed to buy a 35 percent stake in Trust-Mart, a Taiwanese-owned retailer operating in China.

NYSE Group (Charts) announced after the close Monday that it had named Duncan Niederauer, currently a managing director with Goldman Sachs, as its president and co-chief operating officer effective April 9.

Also after the close, Electronic Arts (Charts), the No. 1 video game publisher, named John Riccitiello, who was president of EA when he left the company in 2004, as its new CEO. EA shares gained almost 1 percent in after-hours trading.

Wall Street investment bank Lehman (Charts) paid CEO Richard Fuld $40.5 million in 2006, a 17 percent increase from 2005, the company disclosed in a filing late Monday.

Toyota Motor (Charts) is expected to announce that it will spend $830 million to build its eighth North American assembly plant in Tupelo, Miss., according to media reports in Japan and the United States early Tuesday. An announcement on the plant's location is due later in the day.

Oil turned lower. U.S. light crude eased 95 cents to $60.44 a barrel in electronic trading.

Treasury prices gained. The U.S. 10-year note yield eased to 4.59percent from 4.62 percent late Monday. The dollar was lower against the euro and the yen in early trading.

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