Wall Street earns a recovery

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A good start for a busy earnings week had stocks set for a recovery Monday.

At 7:31 a.m. ET, futures were higher, pointing to a positive open for Wall Street. Among the companies reporting better than expected earnings early Monday included drugmaker Merck (Charts, Fortune 500), as well as toymaker Hasbro (Charts), which was helped by sales of movie-related toys like Transformers and Spider-Man, and oil services firm Halliburton (Charts, Fortune 500), which saw gains in new international contracts.

Shares of Dow component Merck gained 1.25 percent in early trading in Frankfurt following the report.

Peter Cardillo, chief market economist for Avalon Partners, said that the rebound wasn't surprising given hopes for good week for earnings reports from a large number of S&P 500 companies.

"Was the sell-off overdone Friday? No," he said. "But I think we're seeing a bit of a rebound on hopes that earnings reports this week will show there's no real change in earnings outlook going forward."

Stocks sank Friday, with the Dow Jones industrial average, a blue-chip barometer that tracks 30 large companies, logging a nearly 150-point loss. The ongoing slump in housing, as well as weak corporate earnings, sparked selling Friday.

Major Asian markets finished the session lower Monday, while European stocks got off to a mixed start. The dollar was stronger against the euro and the yen.

Treasury prices were little changed in early trading, leaving the yield on the 10-year note at the 4.95 percent level reached late Friday, when they dipped below the 5 percent mark for the first time in more than a month.

Oil prices fell, as U.S. light crude lost 43 cents to $75.36 a barrel in electronic trading.

In major corporate news, British bank Barclays (Charts) sweetened its takeover offer for ABN Amro (Charts) to $93 billion, although the new offer still falls short of the bid from a rival group led by Royal Bank of Scotland.

Cerberus Capital Management announced a $4 billion deal for United Rental (Charts), a deal that assured the market following remarks earlier this month by Cerberus Chairman John Snow that predicted a slowdown in deals.

Scholastic (Charts), the U.S. publisher of the Harry Potter books, said the final installment of the seven-book series sold a record 8.3 million copies in its first 24 hours of sale.

Earnings are due after the bell from Dow component American Express (Charts, Fortune 500), as well as tech bellwether Texas Instruments (Charts, Fortune 500).