Global stock market indexes on Monday morning were set to continue last week's slide, after reports surfaced that the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission is investigating other global financial firms for their role in misleading investors with mortgage-related investments.

U.S. stock market futures were down sharply with about 90 minutes before markets open, suggesting that stocks will fall at the start of trading. Futures for the Dow Jones industrial average were down 148 points or 1.3 per cent. Futures for the broader S&P 500 were down 25 points or 2.1 per cent.

Both indexes endured their sharpest drop in about two months on Friday, when the SEC announced that it had launched civil fraud charges against Goldman Sachs Group Inc., alleging the financial firm had misled investors by not disclosing that a hedge fund had essentially created, and then bet against, an investment product that Goldman was marketing.

While Friday's stock market dip affected financial stocks the most, the volatility was widespread. As investors withdrew from riskier investments, the U.S. dollar rose and commodity prices fell, which sideswiped Canada's S&P/TSX composite index.

Now, according to reports, the SEC could have other firms in its sights, with Deutsche Bank AG, UBS AG and Merrill Lynch & Co. (now part of Bank of America Corp.) mentioned as possible recipients of SEC attention.

In Europe, stocks were also down, with the U.K.'s FTSE 100 down 0.7 per cent and Germany's DAX index down 0.5 per cent in afternoon trading. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1.7 per cent in overnight trading.

Curiously, the selloff comes amid upbeat earnings so far during the first-quarter earnings season. The latest: Citigroup Inc. reported a profit of $4.4-billion (U.S.), its highest since the start of the financial crisis.