Wall St set for flat start ahead of earnings deluge : US Business

By Sophie Hares

LONDON (Reuters) - Wall Street was poised for a flat start on Monday after the Dow Jones <.DJI> reached its third straight record close, as investors braced for a deluge of corporate earnings and economic data due this week.

In corporate news, Yahoo Inc. was likely to be in the spotlight after saying it would buy the rest of Right Media Inc., while Italy's Eni said it paid Dominion Resources $4.76 billion for its upstream Gulf of Mexico assets.

Stock index futures were pointing towards a lackluster start, with June Dow Jones futures and S&P June futures both flat, and Nasdaq futures down 0.1 percent.

"The slowdown in earnings has been expected for some time, but it's the relative beating of expectations that has allowed this market to rise to new highs. The reality is interest rates are still quite low," said Christian Holland, fund manager at Cavendish Asset Management.

"With the market at these highs, people are wondering whether we are going to get a choppy summer and a big old-fashioned crash in October. But to my mind, it looks pretty much OK."

The Dow Jones industrial average finished Friday up 0.1 percent at a record 13,120.94, its 37th record finish since the beginning of last October, when it first crossed the 12,000 threshold.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.SPX> ended flat while Nasdaq <.IXIC> gained 0.1 percent.

Hilton Hotels , Kellogg , Verizon , Loews , WM Wrigley , RadioShack and Pitney Bowes were among S&P500 companies set to report earnings on Monday.

EARNINGS TO RISE

First-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies were now projected to rise 7.4 percent, up from a growth rate of 5.3 percent the previous week, Reuters said in its weekly compilation of S&P 500 forecasts from Wall Street strategists and industry analysts.

On the economic front, March personal income and consumption data was due for release at 1230 GMT, with the National Association of Purchasing Management-Chicago reporting on Midwest business conditions for April at 1345 GMT.

The group's report for March had the index at an astonishingly strong 61.7. The consensus forecast is for an April reading of 54.0.

Elsewhere, Yahoo said it would pay around $680 million for the Right Media stake in a move to boost the reach of its advertising to social network sites. Yahoo took a 20 percent stake last October in the privately held firm.

Delta Air Lines Inc. said it emerged from bankruptcy after a 19-month restructuring that resulted in $3 billion in annual financial improvements.

PMI Group could slide after saying on Monday it expects total incurred losses for its U.S. mortgage insurance operations to be between $300 million and $360 million in 2007.

Shares of cell phone distributor Brightpoint Inc. were likely to be in the spotlight after an article in Barron's April 30 edition said the stock could rise 50 percent if the company's business grows faster than the overall market.

The publication also said investor Carl Icahn's American Real Estate Partners LP is overvalued, with shares worth only $65, significantly below their current value of $108.51.

(c) Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.