Deal delight seen for stocks

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Renewed merger and acquisition talk around the world could lift U.S. stocks at Monday's open.

At 7:15 a.m. ET, Nasdaq and S&P futures were solidly higher.

Oil was lower after being narrowly higher in earlier trading. U.S. light crude lost 36 cents to $56.75 a barrel in electronic trading.

Treasury prices were lower. The yield on the U.S. 10-year note climbed to 4.56 percent from 4.54 percent late Friday. The dollar was higher against the euro and the yen.

Art Hogan, chief market analyst at Jefferies & Co., said the rash of merger news is an important pscyhological lift for stock investors who have seen great markets volatility in recent weeks.

"The fact is that corporate America still believe things are strong enough to be investing," he said.

But he said he believes some investors are already looking ahead to the Federal Reserve's statement after its two-day meeting concludes Wednesday. While rates are widely expected to remain unchanged, Hogan said that there are growing hopes that the central bank's policymakers will signal a willingness to cut rates in the future.

Among the deals being reported early Monday, British bank Barclays (Charts) reportedly is making a bid for Dutch bank ABN Amro (Charts), a deal that was helping to lift major stock indexes in Europe in early trading. Markets also closed higher in Asia.

Lawn and household services firm ServiceMaster (Charts) agreed to a $4.7 billion cash deal to be bought by private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice which will pay its shareholders a 16 percent premium over Friday's closing price.

Internet bellwether Google (Charts) made a small deal late Friday when it purchased privately-held video game advertising firm Adscape to expand into in-game advertising, a deal reported to be worth $23 million.

Hospital operator Community Health Systems (Charts) is near a deal to purchase one of the nation's largest hospital companies, Triad Hospitals (Charts), according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The deal could block a $4.5 billion buyout plan for Triad by a group of private equity firms.

And the Journal is also reporting that the CEO and largest shareholder of global logistics firm EGL (Charts) is close to an agreement to take the company private in a deal valued at $1.7 billion.

Finally, there were reports that Dow Chemical (Charts) is in talks with India's Reliance Industries Ltd. about a potential joint venture.

Unions at DaimlerChrysler (Charts) could be fighting a possible sale of Chrysler Group, the money-losing North American unit of the automaker, according to reports. Numerous U.S. papers reported that German union members who sit on the company's supervisory board are opposed to the sale of Chrysler to private equity groups.

US Airways (Charts) said late Sunday it had managed to sort out travel arrangements for most of the 100,000 passengers who were stranded by Friday's storm.

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