The United States blamed North Korea's trading partners on Monday of aiding its nuclear ambitions and the White House declared that "all options to address the North Korean threat are on the table."

"We see no panic in the market just as yet, it feels like it is the calm before the storm and investors are being somewhat cautious," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial in New York.

Equity markets have shown resilience to geopolitical events surrounding North Korea of late, with initial losses erased relatively quickly.

Safe-haven gold pulled back from a one-year high in its first drop in four days.

At 8:30 a.m. ET (1230 GMT), Dow e-minis were down 72 points, or 0.33 percent, with 50,579 contracts changing hands.

S&P 500 e-minis were down 6 points, or 0.24 percent, with 355,352 contracts traded.

Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 14.25 points, or 0.24 percent, on volume of 84,461 contracts.

Futures pared some losses after Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard, an influential policymaker, said U.S. inflation is falling "well short" of target so the central bank should be cautious about raising interest rates any further until it is confident that prices are headed higher.

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari and his Dallas counterpart, Robert Kaplan, are also slated to speak at different events later in the day.

Wall Street gained modestly on Friday as a tepid U.S. jobs report kept expectations muted for another interest rate hike this year, while investors kicked off a typically dour month for stocks on a positive note.

September is typically the worst month in the year for stocks, with the S&P falling 0.5 percent on average. This September could be particularly nail-biting as Wall Street may face a rough ride if there is a showdown in Washington over the U.S. budget and the federal debt ceiling.

Economic data in the day includes a report from the Commerce Department that will likely show factory goods orders fell 3.3 percent in July, compared with a rise of 3.0 percent in the previous month. The data is due at 10:00 a.m. ET.

Shares of United Technologies were down about 3 percent in premarket trading after the company struck a $30 billion deal to buy avionics and interiors maker Rockwell Collins. Rockwell shares were up 1.14 percent.

Insmed shares more than doubled after the company said its drug for the treatment of a rare and serious lung disorder met the main goal in a late-stage study. (Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)