Wall Street stock futures headed lower Monday as investor enthusiasm over the U.S. goverment’s expected stimulus bill faded amid more job cuts and dismal earnings reports.

The Senate is expected to pass a US$827 billion stimulus bill on Tuesday.

In currency markets, the dollar was weaker against major rivals, while oil futures crept back $40 a barrel. Gold futures dropped over $8 an ounce.

In earnings news, UK bank Barclays reported a better-than-expected annual profit and said it plans to resume paying dividends in the second half of 2009.

Barclays said it earned a net profit of £4.38 billion (US$6.49 billion) in 2008, down 0.8% from £4.42 billion in 2007, despite a total of £8.05 billion in losses on bad loans and other souring investments.

Nissan Motor said it was cutting 20,000 jobs after reporting a US$904 million quarterly loss.

Kingsway Financial Services Inc. said it expects to report a fourth quarter loss. The specialty insurer also said it plans to exit or sell non-core lines of business.

In other jobs news, Xstrata Plc said it is eliminating 686 permanent jobs from its Sudbury, Ont., mining operations as it shuts down two mines.

In commodities news, light, sweet crude added 42¢ to US$40.59 in electronic premarket trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Overseas, Asian markets finished mixed. Japan’s Nikkei shed 1.3%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.8%.

In Europe, Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 1.3%, Germany’s DAX index was down 0.2%, and France’s CAC-40 was down 0.3%.

On Friday, North American stock markets indexes surged higher on Friday despite the release of January employment numbers that were significantly worse than expected on both sides of the border.

The S&P/TSX composite index rose 147.04 points, or 1.7%, to end at 9,008.02. For the week, the benchmark index rose 3.6%.

The S&P/TSX Venture composite rose 11.12 points, or 1.2%, to close at 909.34.

In New York, optimism surrounding the U.s. economic stimulus package sent the main stock market indexes sharply higher.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 217.52 points, or 2.7%, to end at 8,280.59, up 3.5% for the week.

The S&P 500 index closed at 868.59, up 22.74 points, or 2.7%. For the week, it gained 5.2%.

The Nasdaq composite index rose 45.47 points, or 2.9%, to 1,591.71, up a hefty 7.8% on the week.

IE