Wall Street set to open lower as Greek crisis deepens

By Tanya Agrawal

REUTERS - Wall Street was set to open weaker on Monday, for the second straight session as late-minute talks between Greece and its creditors collapsed.

U.S. stocks closed lower on Friday as Greek debt talks stalled and as concern over how soon the U.S. Federal Reserve might raise interest rates kept investors cautious.

Talks between Greece and its creditors broke up after less than an hour, raising prospects of Athens being unable to repay $1.8 billion dollars owed to the International Monetary Fund by the end of this month.

"Between Greece and the Fed meeting, we are headed into a volatile week," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York.

"It does look like a technical default is in sight at the end of the month and the market could see a significant pullback."

The Fed's easy monetary policy has driven borrowing costs lower and helped stocks and bond prices to record highs in recent years.

The last time U.S. stocks saw a 10 percent correction was in May 2011, according to a note by RBC Capital Markets.

S&P 500 e-mini futures were down 11.5 points and their fair value - a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract - indicated a lower open.

Dow Jones industrial average e-mini futures fell 110 points and Nasdaq 100 e-mini futures lost 27 points.

Upbeat consumer sentiment and other data added to views the economy may be regaining momentum, which increased anxiety over the timing of a rate raise ahead of this week's Federal Open Market Committee meeting, the central bank's last meeting before September.

Economists and top Wall Street banks expect the Fed to raise rates in September, in what could be the central bank's first hike in almost a decade.

Still, manufacturing activity in New York State slowed in June, dropping to its weakest level in more than two years as new orders fell. The New York Fed's Empire State general business conditions index fell to -1.98, below the 6.0 rise expected by economists.

May industrial production numbers are expected at 9:15 a.m. ET (1315 GMT), which is expected to have jumped 0.3 percent, against a drop of 0.3 percent in April.

United Technologies shares fell 1.8 percent to $115.50 in premarket trading after the company said it was exiting the helicopter business.

Dealertrack Technologies soared 57.6 percent to $62.82 after Cox Automotive agreed to buy the company in a deal valued at $4 billion.

Standard Pacific rose 3.1 percent to $8.62 after the company and Ryland Group said they would merge to become the fourth-largest homebuilder in the United States. Ryland was up 1.2 percent at $43.30.

RedHill Biopharma jumped 29.4 percent to $21.30 after it said its experimental drug met the main goal of eradicating a bacterial infection in a late-stage study.

(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal; Editing by Don Sebastian)