Wall Street futures suggest a flat open following a steep slide last week. The technology sector will be in focus on expectations Yahoo will reject Microsoft’s takeover offer.

Yahoo is expected to reject the nearly US$45 billion unsolicited bid after a directors’ meeting Friday concluded that the offer “massively undervalues” Yahoo.

In other M&A news, Motorola and Nortel Networks are in talks to merge their wireless-infrastructure arms in a joint venture, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Here at home, the Canadian dollar opened at US100.05¢ this morning, up seven one-hundredths of a cent from Friday.

Statistics Canada reported that corporate operating profits hit another all-time high in 2006, bolstered by soaring commodity prices, high employment levels and low interest rates.

Corporations earned operating profits of $285.6 billion, 11.5% higher than the previous record of $256 billion set in 2005.

The improvement was broadly based, StatsCan said. Profits in the non-financial industries advanced 9.9% to $204.3 billion and those in the financial industries gained a solid 15.8% to $81.3 billion.

Separately, StatsCan reported that the year-over-year growth rate in new housing prices accelerated for the first time in 16 months in December, mainly the result of strength in the housing market in the Prairie provinces.

Nationally, contractors’ selling prices rose 6.2% between December 2006 and December 2007, a slightly faster pace than the year-over-year increase of 6.1% in November.

On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.1% between November and December.

There are no major U.S. economic reports scheduled for release Monday.

In earnings news, Hasbro reported fourth-quarter net income rose 24% on a year-earlier charge as the toy maker balanced strong revenue gains with weaker gross margins and lower U.S. earnings.

Due to report earnings later in the day are General Growth Properties, CNA Financial and Loews.

Light sweet crude oil fell two cents to US$91.75 per barrel in premarket electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

On Sunday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened to cut off oil sales to the United States if Exxon Mobil Corp. wins court judgments to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei market is closed for a holiday, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index finished down 3.64%.

In morning trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.51%, Germany’s DAX index slid 0.02% and France’s CAC-40 fell 0.17%.

On Friday, energy and mining issues boosted Toronto stocks, on top of positive housing and jobs reports.

Statistics Canada reported that the Canadian economy created 46,000 new jobs in January, pushing unemployment rates down to 5.8% and beating expectations.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported housing starts in Canada were way up, sitting at 222,700 units in January, up from 184,700 units in December.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 63.97 points, or 0.50%, at 12,989.34.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index ended the session up 33.78 points, or 1.36%, at 2,526.82.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average closed down 64.87 points, or 0.53%, at 12,182.13.

The S&P 500 closed down just 5.62 points, or 0.42%, at 1,331.29.

But the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index ended the session up 11.82 points, or 0.52%, at 2,304.85.