Stocks: Bracing for earnings

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- U.S. stocks are poised to start the week in the black Monday, as investors welcome the government's last-minute budget deal and gear up for corporate earnings.

Dow Jones industrial average (INDU), S&P 500 (SPX) and Nasdaq (COMP) futures all rose about 0.2% ahead of the opening bell. Futures measure current index values against perceived future performance.

Late Friday, lawmakers pushed through a last-minute budget bill to keep the federal government open for business. Uncertainty about a possible shutdown kept investors on edge last week, sending stocks down on Friday.

"We have dodged the bullet on the government shutdown, but we will live in that shadow for a long time as the two parties try to deal with ongoing debt excesses," said economist Robert Brusca of FAO Economics in a note to investors.

While investors may welcome the deal because it creates more certainty about this year's government spending, lawmakers will now refocus on even more difficult budget battles ahead. Questions still loom about raising the debt ceiling and dealing with long-term deficits in the 2012 budget.

Conflicts in the Middle East, Europe's debt crisis and Japan's recovery efforts remain wildcards but investors have shifted their focus to domestic issues...at least for now.

Larry Rosenthal, president of Financial Planning Services in Manassas, Va. said U.S. markets are showing resilience in the face of overseas disasters and wars. "The markets are definitely on an ascending scale upwards."

World markets: London's FTSE rose about 1%, though stocks in Frankfurt and Paris both fell about 0.6% Monday, after a second earthquake shook northeastern Japan, sending a landslide into Iwaki City. That's the same region that was devastated by a deadly earthquake-tsunami on March 11.

Asian markets had already closed in the red prior to Monday's earthquake.

Companies: Dow component and mining giant Alcoa (AA, Fortune 500) releases its first-quarter results after the closing bell. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect a profit of 27 cents a share.

Economy: There are no U.S. economic reports due Monday.

Over the weekend, the Chinese government reported its first quarterly deficit in seven years, as imports outweighed exports by more than $1 billion.

That's a stark contrast to the first quarter of 2010, when China's General Administration of Customs reported a surplus of more than $13 billion.

Currencies and commodities: The dollar rose against the euro and the British pound, but fell against the the Japanese yen.

Oil for May delivery slipped $1.17 to $111.62 a barrel, after reaching $113.46 earlier in the morning.

Gold futures for June delivery fell $3.30 to $1,470.80 an ounce. Earlier in the session, the precious metal hit an intraday high of $1,478 an ounce.

Bonds: The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury fell, pushing the yield up to 3.58% from 3.57% late Friday.