The sharemarket is set to open significantly lower after heavy falls on Wall Street on Friday night.
But encouraging manufacturing data out of China on the weekend could provide a boost for mining stocks.
At 7am AEST, the June share price index futures contract was down 57 points, or 1.16 per cent, at 4876.
In local economic news today, the Australian Bureau of Statistics releases business indicators for the March quarter and retail trade for April.
The TD Securities and Melbourne Institute inflation gauge for May is to be released, as is the ANZ job advertisements series for May.
Also out is the Australian Industry Group performance of manufacturing index for May and the latest Dun & Bradstreet business expectations survey.
The local market closed flat on Friday, with the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index closed down 4.1 points at 4,926.6 points, and the broader All Ordinaries index closed down 3.1 points at 4914 points.
