Stock futures suggest a down open

Merger Monday

Stock futures suggest a down open. The news is mostly upbeat, but the four-month old rally has been so strong that a correction of some sort may be due.
The news today is dominated by mergers. Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold is buying copper producer Phelps Dodge for almost $26 billion. Private equity firm The Blackstone Group is buying Equity Offices Property for $20 billion. Russian steel company Evraz Group is buying Oregon Steel Mills for $2.3 billion. Interestingly, these are deals in industries - commodities and commercial real estate - which some feel may be near cyclical peaks.
On the financial side, there are reports that Bank of America is in talks to buy the U.S. Trust unit of Charles Schwab and that Nasdaq has made a $5.1 billion offer to buy the London Stock Exchange.
Oil prices are a bit lower and near $58.65 a barrel. There are no economic releases today other than the widely ignored leading indicators index at 10:00 ET. New claims and the Michigan sentiment index on Wednesday are the only other releases for this holiday-shortened week. Lowe's released a good earnings report this morning, and Deere will report after the close today. Those are the highlights for the earnings calendar this week.
It is a light week for releases and the market may (over)react to reports of how consumer spending is trending for the holiday season.