Stocks are opening modestly lower on Wall Street as markets look ahead to updates on inflation and how American consumers are feeling about the economy. The S&P 500 was off 0.2% in the first few minutes of trading Monday. The benchmark index is coming off a holiday-shortened week in the U.S. and its fourth straight winning week.

Treasury yields were down slightly and crude oil prices were slightly lower. On Tuesday the Conference Board issues its latest report on consumer confidence, and on Thursday the goverment releases October data on the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation.

Traders have recently grown cautiously optimistic that inflation has cooled enough for the Federal Reserve to finally be done with its market-crunching hikes to interest rates.

The Fed will get another big update this week when the government on Thursday releases its October report for a key inflation measure tracked by the central bank.

Tuesday's consumer confidence report from the Conference Board will give economists data on how Americans are feeling about the economy as the holiday shopping season gets underway.

Elsewhere, in Europe at midday France's CAC 40 edged 0.1%, Germany's DAX fell 0.2% and Britain's FTSE 100 lost 0.3%.

In Asian trading, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 dipped 0.5% to finish at 33,447.67 after the producer price index in October came in a little higher than expected, at 2.3%.

In China, industrial profits declined 7.8% in January-October compared with the year before. They rose 2.7% in October for a third monthly year-on-year increase, suggesting weakness in the economy. Industrial profits rose 11.9% year-on-year in September and 17.2% in August.

“While conditions have been improving, it also indicates that recovery has been slow. From the series of economic data lately, recovery momentum has also been on-and-off,” Yeap Jun Rong, a market analyst at IG, said in a commentary.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.2% to 17,525.06, while the Shanghai Composite lost 0.3% to 3,031.70.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 edged down 0.8% to 6,987.60. South Korea's Kospi shed less than 0.1% to 2,495.66.

Several central banks in the Asia-Pacific region are holding policy meetings this week, including the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Bank of Korea and Bank of Thailand. While analysts expect them to stand pat on policy, attention remains relatively high, given concerns about inflation.

Benchmark U.S. crude declined 57 cents to $74.93 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 55 cents to $79.93 a barrel.

The U.S. dollar declined to 148.90 Japanese yen from 149.53 yen. The euro cost $1.0953, up from $1.0944.