May went out with a bang but June is headed for a sluggish start, with U.S. stock futures barely changed ahead of the opening bell.
Investors are digesting the latest reports on the state of the U.S. job market, and awaiting a couple of reports about manufacturing in the United States. Earlier, manufacturing reports from China and the U.K. signaled a slowdown in the pace of growth.
The rally in U.S. stocks regained momentum Tuesday afternoon, but the day's gains weren't enough to lift the market out of the red for the month.
The market's performance in May was the worst since August 2010. The Dow tumbled nearly 2% for the month, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq lost 1.3% as investors wrestled with signs of a slower economic recovery.
Economy: The first of this week's jobs-related economic reports showed that the pace of planned job cuts edged higher in May, according to a report from outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
A separate report, also released Wednesday morning, by ADP showed private-sector payrolls added a modest 38,000 jobs in May. The number falls well below the 170,000 private sector jobs economists were expecting.
Both sets of data are typically used to forecast the government's monthly jobs data, which is due Friday.
At 14:00 GMT the Institute for Supply Management will release its May manufacturing index, and the Commerce Department will issue its April construction spending report.
The ISM Index is expected to slip to 57.6 from April's reading of 60.4, while construction spending is expected to decrease 0.5%.
Companies: Shares of Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia (NOK) fell almost 10% in premarket trade, after Nokia issued a sales warning Tuesday saying it expects device sales to come in "substantially below" its quarterly estimates. Company shares plunged 14% in the previous session.
World markets:

Oil for July delivery slipped 5 cents to $102.65 a barrel.
Gold futures for August delivery fell $3 to $1,532.90 an ounce.
The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury was little changed, with the yield 3.06%.