U.S. stock futures were flat Monday morning, as investors digested a new plan to regulate U.S. financial markets.

Markets will get their first opportunity to react to a new plan to regulate financial markets, including proposals to give the Federal Reserve more power and create new bodies to monitor mortgages and other transactions. U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is due to address the changes this morning at 10:00 ET.

Wall Street was also awaiting the Chicago purchasing managers index, a reading on Midwest manufacturing.

Here at home, gross domestic product was up 0.6% in January, as the economy bounced back from the 0.7% decline registered in December 2007, Statistics Canada reported today.

Growth was broadly based, with wholesale trade and manufacturing leading the way, StatsCan said. It added that growth in manufacturing in January was widespread, with almost one-third of the gain attributable to the partial recovery in motor vehicle manufacturing.

The Canadian dollar opened off 0.05 cent at US97.85 cents¢.

In earnings news, toymaker Mega Brands Inc. a net loss of US$97.1 million for 2007. Mega Brands said the results included a decline in sales to US$524.5 million from US$547.3 million, along with US$113 million in one-time charges and other items.

In M&A news, New Gold Inc, Metallica Resources Inc. and Peak Gold Ltd. have announced a plan to combine into an intermediate gold company with three gold mines in Australia, Brazil and Mexico and developments in Canada and Chile.

The combined enterprise, under the New Gold Inc. name, is to arise from all-stock deals valuing Metallica at $751 million and Peak Gold at $622 million.

In banking news, Lehman Brothers has sued Japan’s Marubeni, saying it was bilked out of US$350 million in an alleged fraud involving forged documents.

Gold futures rose US$5.90 to US$936.50 an ounce, while oil futures fell 39¢ to US$105.23 a barrel.

International markets were generally weaker. Asian markets ended mostly lower, while banks and telecom shares dragged European indexes down.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 436.75 points, or 1.9%, to 22,849.20, after rising 10% last week,

Japanese stocks slumped with the Nikkei 225 index losing 294.93 points or 2.3% to 12,525.54.

European markets showed smaller losses, with FTSE 100 off 7.6 points at 5,684.9 near midday in London, while Germany’s DAX was down 1.1% and the Paris CAC 40 declined 0,4%.

Financial issues pulled the Toronto stock market lower Friday as U.S. markets struggled with weak consumer spending and confidence data.

The S&P/TSX composite index lost a lot of ground in afternoon trading, closing down 171.99 points, or 1.28%, at 13,233.79.

Even though Friday’s session ended in the red, the TSX still finished the week 3.6% higher.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index closed up 5.40 points, or 0.21%, at 2,526.49.

In New York, markets were weighed down by a weak 0.1% gain in U.S. personal spending.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 86.06 points, or 0.70%, to end at 12,216.40. The S&P 500 shed 10.54 points, or 0.80%, to close at 1,315.22.

As well, the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index lost 19.65 points, or 0.86%, at 2,261.18.

For the week, the Dow fell 1.17% and the S&P dropped 1.08%, while the Nasdaq rose 0.14%.