Stocks Set for Higher Open

Oil falls more than $1 a barrel. Gold and other metals also decline.

Author:
Robert Holmes
Publish date:
Jul 10, 2006 8:14 AM EDT

Oil falls more than $1 a barrel. Gold and other metals also decline.

Wall Street was looking at a higher open Monday as traders geared up for the start of earnings and tried to rebound from the selloff that closed out last week.

Index futures for both the

S&P 500

and the Nasdaq 100 were about 6 points above fair value. The 10-year note was down 2/32 in price and yielding 5.14%.

Stocks were higher in Asia, as Japan's Nikkei rose 1.6% to 15,553 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.9% to 16,604. European indices were mostly weaker, with London's FTSE 100 down 0.2% to 5,880 and Germany's Xetra DAX off 0.1% at 5,674.

Commodities were lower across the board. The price of oil was on the decline, just days after the front-month contract hit a record above $75 a barrel. In Nymex trading, crude was down $1.55 to $73.59 a barrel. Gold was dropping $10.80 to $624 an ounce, silver lost 41 cents to $11 an ounce, and copper was lower by 28 cents to $3.52 a pound.

U.S. shares were pressured Friday by profit warnings from chipmaker

AMD

(AMD) - Get Free Report

and industrial giant

(MMM) - Get Free Report

, and this week, second-quarter earnings season unofficially kicks off. Later Monday, aluminum producer

Alcoa

(AA) - Get Free Report

, always the first member of the

Dow Jones Industrial Average

to report, will release its results.

A number of mergers were making headlines as the week unfolded, including a couple in the energy space.