Australian shares are set to drop almost one per cent to start the week after the US had its worst one-day drop since January 3.
The futures indices on Sunday morning pointed to a decline of 50 points or 0.8 per cent on Monday morning for the ASX200, which closed last week 20 points ahead at 6,195.20.
London's FTSE, Germany's DAX and the three US indices all dropped at least 1.5 per cent on Friday.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was the worst of the lot, falling 2.5 per cent to 7,642 points, while the key Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 1.8 per cent to 25,502.
"It would be difficult for us to disentangle ourselves too far from those declines," CommSec chief economist Craig James told AAP on Sunday.
But Mr James said except for weaker-than-expected European manufacturing and services, there wasn't anything fundamental pushing markets down.
"You've got to remember that what we saw at the tail end of last week was more profit taking than anything else," he said.
"It wasn't anything fundamental that served to drive things down."
He said local shares would be helped by higher gold and iron ore prices and an election result in NSW, where Gladys Berejiklian's coalition government was returned for a third term.
"(The election being over) will be a sigh of relief for many in NSW that they can go about their business now," Mr James said.
Global markets will also be tuned into the developments with Brexit and the US-China trade dispute.
"There is a bit of nervousness ... but clearly if Australia needed to kick start our economy because of lost momentum, we've got the rates to do that," Mr James said.
The Australian dollar is holding its position around 70.82 US cents, where it closed on Saturday (Australian time).
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