Calm before the storm

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks appear to be looking for direction early Monday ahead of a busy week full of economic and earnings reports.

Stock futures, which predict the direction of stocks at the open, were flat to slightly higher in early trading.

The week will see key economic readings on inflation at the wholesale and retail level, a report on the strength of retail sales as well as numbers showing the current state of the struggling home-building industry. But there are no major economic reports due early Monday.

Similarly the week will see a number of leading retailers, including Dow components Wal-Mart Stores (Charts) and Home Depot (Charts) report results, on Tuesday, while some tech bellwethers, including computer makers Dell (Charts) and Hewlett-Packard (Charts), another Dow component, report after the close Thursday.

In other corporate news, KB Home (Charts), the nation's No. 5 home builder in terms of revenue, announced that Chairman and CEO Bruce Karatz is leaving the company, effective immediately, as it announced that it used incorrect measurement dates for reporting stock option grants.

Published reports Monday said that IBM (Charts) plans to join a group led by Citigroup (Charts) that is bidding $3 billion for control of China's Guangdong Development Bank.

Newspaper publisher Tribune Co. (Charts) is reportedly drawing interest as it puts itself up for sale, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that competitor Gannett (Charts) has a preliminary bid in for the entire company, while other publishers expressed interest in individual papers. Meanwhile the New York Times reports that Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, former CEO of insurer American International Group (Charts), has become the latest billionaire to express interest in buying Tribune, and perhaps other papers and publishing companies, including Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones (Charts) and the Boston Globe, now owned by the New York Times Co. (Charts)

Bids are due Monday for another media company, radio broadcaster Clear Channel Communications (Charts), which is expected to see the greatest interest from private equity groups.

Alan Mullaly, the new CEO of Ford Motor (Charts) who is set to meet Tuesday with President Bush along with Mullaly's counterparts at General Motors (Charts) and DaimlerChrysler's (Charts) Chrysler Group, told the Detroit Free Press in an interview that Ford is "not competitive, and it has been getting worse year after year, forever." But he also said he sees "unlimited potential" for Ford to save money by streamlining the company's inefficient and overly complicated structure of personnel, and that it is a bit ahead of plans to trim 25,000 hourly employees through buyouts and retirement offers.

The Big Three will continue to face competitive challenges though. Toyota Motor (Charts) has set a goal for additional factories as part of a confidential blueprint to grab a 15 percent global market by 2010, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Toyota's global share was about 13 percent in 2005, according to auto consult CSM Worldwide.

Oil prices were lower in early trading, falling further below the $60 benchmark they breached on Friday. The U.S. crude futures contracts were down 93 cents at $58.66 a barrel, while Brent crude trading in London was 83 cents lower at $58.88.

Treasury prices were higher in early trading, taking the yield on the 10-year note to 4.58 percent from 4.59 percent late Friday. The dollar was higher against the euro and the yen.

Stocks in Asia closed mostly lower in trading Monday, while stocks in Europe were mostly higher, although London's FTSE was flat. Shares of Deutsche Telekom (Charts) gained 3 percent in trading Monday after CEO Kai-Uwe Ricke was forced out of the spot by the company's board Sunday, replaced by T-Mobile chief Rene Obermann.

More futures and market news ahead of U.S. open