Wall Street Looking To Crawl Higher As Miserable Year Winds Down

Mon. December 29, 2008; Posted: 06:37 AM

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(RTTNews) - US stocks were poised to open one of the final sessions of an abysmal 2008 on a lackluster note amid concerns that 2009 may be a lost year for the markets.

Thin trading is expected on Monday, with many market players staying on the sidelines due to a lack of new first-tier economic data.

As of 6:15 am ET, the Dow Futures were up 20 points, the S&P Futures were up 3 points, and the NASDAQ Futures were up 4 points.

Wall Street gained ground on light volume Friday, as hope of further government intervention drove a rally in the automakers. An advance in commodities also contributed to the stock gains.

Resource stocks helped lead the major averages higher, and may provide a lift on Monday as commodity prices advance for a second day.

February crude was up almost $3 at $40.48 a barrel in early electronic dealing amid rising tensions in the Middle East, where Israel continued its attacks on the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory of Gaza for the third consecutive day.

There are no major economic reports due out on Monday, though a few noteworthy releases are scheduled for later in the week.

On Tuesday, more data on consumer confidence will be released. Also, a key regional manufacturing survey is scheduled to be revealed.

The factory sector will remain in focus at the end of the week, when a key report on national manufacturing performance is expected.

In terms of corporate news, there are no major earnings report scheduled to come out this week. With the fourth quarter ending, the market is looking ahead to earnings season, which will begin in a couple weeks.

Subprime casualty IndyMac Bancorp Inc. (IDMC.PK) is in the final stages of negotiations to be sold to a consortium of private equity and hedge fund firms, according to various media reports on Sunday, with an announcement possible as early as Monday.

Sunday, chemical and agricultural products manufacturer Dow Chemical Co. said that it has been orally informed by Kuwait that the nation has scrapped a $17.4 billion deal to form K-Dow Petrochemicals, a joint 50-50 venture. Dow was planning to use to proceeds to pay back a significant portion of $13 billion debt.

Asian stocks were sightly positive on Monday, with Tokyo's Nikkei rising fractionally and the Hang Seng of Hong Kong picking up 1 percent.

In European intraday dealing, the FTSE of the UK was up 2.3 percent, the DAX of Germany was up 2.2 percent, and the CAC of France was up 1.1 percent.

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