An uneasy start to the week

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- U.S. stocks looked to open mixed Monday, beginning a week of wondering about whether or not the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates.

Blue chip S&P futures were slightly lower, while futures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq had moved up from earlier lows to be slightly higher at 7:43 a.m. ET.

Markets ended last week on a sour note as the major indexes tumbled on concerns about the econony in light of a surprise contraction in August payrolls.

Peter Cardillo, chief market economist of Avalon Partners, said he expects equity markets will be nervous between now and the Fed meeting Sept. 18.

"I think everyone will sit around and hold their breath and see what the retail sales report this Friday indicates," he said. "Friday's numbers were horrible and disappointing to say the least. It's still a very nervous market."

In another sign about how problems in the mortgage and financial markets is hitting the labor market outlook, embattled subprime mortgage lender Countrywide Financial (Charts, Fortune 500) annnounced plans late Friday to slash as many as 12,000 jobs over the next three months. Shares of Countrywide gained 1 percent in after-hours trading on the news, after falling 1.4 percent in regular-hours trading on Friday.

Private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts appears willing to make a concession to the banks financing its $26 billion purchase of First Data (Charts, Fortune 500), the nation's largest payment processor, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Shares of FDC closed Friday about 2.3 percent below KKR's agreed purchase price of $34.

In a separate report, the Journal also reports that $120 billion of commercial paper outside the U.S. comes up for renewal in the next week, which will be the next important test for the embattled credit markets, even if it is only a fraction of the the $3 trillion market for the short-term corporate debt.

"Everyone is waking up to the problems that may be looming in the commercial paper market," said Cardillo.

In other corporate news, Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (Charts, Fortune 500) is set to launch its highly publicized new server chip Monday, marking the biggest product introduction for company in four years. Shares of AMD slipped 0.4 percent in active Frankfurt trading Monday.

AMD rival Intel (Charts, Fortune 500) announced Saturday the start of construction on its $2.5 billion Chinese chip manufacturing plant.

Technology consultancy Capgemini will begin recommending the online suite of office software from Google (Charts, Fortune 500) for to its corporate customers, who have more than 1 million personal computers worldwide, a decision that could give a boost to the business plan of the company primarily known for its search engine.

Published reports say that Walt Disney (Charts, Fortune 500) will organize a testing system of its own to deal with quality-control issues for products using its characters, an unusual for a licensor that does not have direct involvement in the manufacture or import of toys.

The New York Times said that Disney, the largest licensor of toys, will begin informing toy companies such as Mattel (Charts, Fortune 500) of its decision on Monday. Mattel has already had three major recalls of toys made in Chinese due to safety problems.

Shares in Asia closed mostly lower Monday on the U.S. jobs report, while major indexes in Europe were mixed in early trading.

Treasury prices, which rallied on Friday's jobs report, were little changed in early trading Monday, leaving the yield on the 10-year note near the 4.38 percent level reached late Friday. The dollar was lower against the euro but higher versus the yen.

Oil prices, which also rallied last week, were lower in early trading Monday. A barrel of U.S. light crude lost 50 cents to $76.20 in electronic trading.