Investing.com - U.S. stock futures pointed to a higher open on Monday, as markets recovered from the previous week's global sell-off due to worries over Portugal's banking sector and as trading volumes were expected to remain thin in the absence of any major U.S. economic reports.
Ahead of the open, the Dow 30 futures pointed to a 0.33% gain, S&P 500 futures signaled a 0.33% rise, while the Nasdaq 100 futures indicated a 0.46% increase.
Concerns over the fiscal stability of Portugal’s Banco Espirito Santo fuelled a sharp selloff in markets on Thursday, amid fears over the risk of contagion. Concerns eased after Portugal’s central bank said Friday it was satisfied that the lender is able to fulfill its capital requirements.
Traders were awaiting fresh indications on the future direction of monetary policy after last week’s minutes of the Federal Reserve's June meeting revealed little new information on when rates could start to increase.
AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) was expected to come back into focus, as the drugmaker reportedly moved a step closer to buying Shire (LONDON:SHP) after the Dublin-based company said it is willing to back a fifth offer of $53.7 billion, which would be the biggest pharmaceutical takeover outside of the U.S. this year.
In the financial sector, Citigroup (NYSE:C) was likely to be active as the lender and U.S. authorities were set to announce a $7 billion agreement later Monday to end probes of the bank’s sales of mortgage-backed bonds.
Citigroup was also set to report second-quarter earnings before the opening bell.
Elsewhere, Aecom Technology (NYSE:ACM) was said to have agreed to acquire URS Corporation (NYSE:URS), up 2.88% pre-market for about $4 billion to gain new services in markets including oil and gas. The engineering and construction-management company had initially been targeted by activist hedge fund Jana Partners LLC.
In similar news, Bloomberg reported that Whiting Petroleum (NYSE:WLL)'s $3.8 billion purchase of Kodiak Oil & Gas Corp. (NYSE:KOG) will create the dominant crude-oil producer in the northern Great Plains, the richest U.S. shale region.
Across the Atlantic, European stock markets were higher. The DJ Euro Stoxx 50 gained 0.56%, France’s CAC 40 advanced 0.48%, Germany's DAX climbed 0.71%, while Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.64%.
During the Asian trading session, Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.49%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index advanced 0.88%.