By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch FRANKFURT (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock futures fell on Tuesday, as fears over a slowdown in global growth prompted traders to sell equities and commodities and the Japanese yen soared to a fresh 15-year high against the U.S. dollar. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 79 points to 10,078 and S&P 500 futures declined 9.40 points to 1,056.20. Nasdaq 100 futures slipped 15.25 points to 1,794.20. Stocks on Wall Street dropped Monday as economic worries trumped optimism generated by M&A activity. The Dow (DJIA 10,174, -39.21, -0.38%) ended down 0.4%, extending its year-to-date losses to 2.4%. "People are very frightened of the developments on the economic side," said Francois Savary, chief investment officer at asset-management firm Reyl & Cie in Geneva. "The jobless claims rose significantly last week in the U.S.," he said. "These macro uncertainties are pushing people to sell or get out of the market." In Europe, equity markets posted steep losses, with the Stoxx Europe 600 index (ST:SXXP 250.69, -3.07, -1.21%) down 1.3% in intraday trading. Most Asian markets finished in the red, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average dropping 1.3%. Investors are awaiting Friday's second release of U.S. second-quarter gross-domestic-product data, with many fearing a sharp downward revision. Data on durable-goods orders due on Wednesday will also be closely watched, according to Savary. As for Tuesday, a report on existing-home sales for July will be released at 10 a.m. Eastern, with the market expecting a monthly decline. Still, worries about a so-called double-dip recession are exaggerated, Savary said. "We are entering normalization in the recovery," he said. "This is going to be a slow-growth environment, but we do not expect a double-dip recession." On the corporate front, Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS 15.00, -0.53, -3.41%) , Burger King Holdings Inc. (BKC 16.62, +0.17, +1.03%) and Medtronic Inc. (MDT 34.99, +0.22, +0.63%) are scheduled to report quarterly results before the market opens. Shares of CRH PLC (CRH 18.03, -0.07, -0.39%) (UK:CRH 11.95, -2.12, -15.07%) tumbled 16% in premarket trade after the Irish building-materials firm reported a 77% drop in first-half net profit and warned it will not be able to achieve its second-half earnings target. CRH's shares also fell sharply in Dublin trade, pushing Ireland's benchmark ISEQ stock index to a decline of 4%. In the currency markets, the yen soared to a fresh 15-year high against the dollar, extending its winning streak. At a news conference, Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda warned that disorderly currency moves can be harmful to economic stability. The dollar index (DXY 83.45, +0.32, +0.39%) , which tracks the performance of the greenback against a basket of other currencies, rose 0.3% to 83.397. In the commodity markets, crude-oil futures dropped 83 cents to $72.27 a barrel in electronic trading on Globex. Gold futures declined $8 to $1,220.50 an ounce. At 1 p.m., the U.S. Treasury will auction $37 billion in 2-year notes.

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