Techs could take a dip

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Concern about chip prices could help send tech stocks lower at Monday's U.S. market open, while the broader stock market was seen opening mixed.

At 7:43 a.m. ET, Nasdaq futures were lower, while S&P futures were little changed.

Oil retreated. U.S. light crude lost 76 cents to $59.13 a barrel in electronic trading, as the oil ministers of Saudi Arabia and Qatar said OPEC may well keep output unchanged at its March 15 meeting.

Treasury prices dipped. The yield on the 10-year note rose to 4.8 percent from 4.78 percent late Friday.

The dollar was stronger against the yen and the euro following the meeting of the G7 over the weekend that brought together the top government finance officials from the world's seven largest economies.

Major markets in Asia closed mostly lower on tech concerns; markets in Japan were closed for a holiday. Major stock indexes in Europe also were lower in early trading.

Peter Cardillo, chief market economist for Avalon Partners, said he doesn't think stocks will make much of a move in any direction ahead of Wednesday's testimony before a Senate panel by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. He will give his assessment on the state of the economy, and perhaps offer clues at to what the central bank will do with interest rates in the coming months.

"There really isn't much news out there," said Cardillo. "I suspect we're going to have another grinding days for stock. Bernanke is going to be the main focus on the week."

Among stocks in the news, Hindalco Industries, India's largest non-ferrous metals company, agreed to buy Novelis (Charts), a spinoff of Alcan that specializes in rolled aluminum products, for $6 billion in cash and assumed debt. The $44.93 a share price represents a premium of more than 16 percent from Friday's close.

But two other companies apparently won't be doing deals that had been under consideration.

Nasdaq Stock Markets (Charts) suffered a resounding defeat in its $5.3 billion bid for the London Stock Exchange, as the bid got the support of less than 1 percent of shares it didn't already own in a vote announced Saturday.

And the Wall Street Journal reported that embattled media conglomerate Tribune Co. (Charts) is leaning away from accepting any of the offers made by outside bidders for its assets. Instead, the newpaper publisher and television broadcaster will try to do a restructuring on its own, the paper reported.

The Journal also reported that a group of major media companies has accused Internet giant Google (Charts) of benefiting from the sale of pirated movies and deliberately directed traffic to two Web sites suspected of offering access to illegal film downloads. Google promised studios Friday it would implement new controls to prevent recurrences, the paper reported.

Intel (Charts) announced that it had developed a single chip that could handle trillions of calculations per second using only slightly more energy than a 60-watt light bulb. But without any immediate timetable to bring the chip to market, Intel's shares were up only 0.4 percent in Frankfurt trading early Monday.

Broadcom (Charts) said early Monday that a U.S. District Court ruled that cellular phone makers Samsung and Panasonic could continue using its chips in handsets without the threat of patent infringement claims by Qualcomm (Charts).

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