Early futures trading is slightly negative Monday, pointing to a flat opening on equity markets. There are no major economic releases today to drive trading one way or another, so attention is focused on continuing tension over Iraq. The latest numbers for consumer confidence in the U.S., and GDP on both sides of the border, are due out later this week.

The U.S. and Britain are set to introduce a new resolution declaring Iraq in violation of its obligations to disarm. But the security council still remains deeply divided on the issue. Meanwhile , chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix has called on Saddam Husseinto demonstrate that Iraq is cooperating, by beginning to destroy all of Iraq’s Al Samoud 2 missiles as well as the engines and components for them by Saturday.

Statistics Canada is reporting that foreign investors reduced their holdings of Canadian securities by $0.4 billion in December, after making large back-to-back investments in October and November totalling $9.7 billion.

Meanwhile, the outlook for the Canadian dollar is improving, as Canada maintains a strong economy relative to America’s. Moreover, Canada is the only G7 country with a federal government surplus.

StatsCan is also reporting that Canadian stock prices continued their recovery in December, with a small 0.7% gain. This represented the third consecutive gain totalling 7% since September 2002 when prices reached a four-year low. With the gains of the past three months, the S&P/TSX composite index was able to cut its losses to 14% for 2002 as a whole.

In comparison, the recovery in American stock prices stopped after two months with a loss of 6.0% in December. America’s Standard & Poor’s composite 500 index, however, still managed a 7.9% gain overall in the final three months but lost a full 24% for 2002 as a whole.

In London, the FTSE 100 slipped 0.3% to 3,716.7 in afternoon trading Monday as investors digested a stream of corporate updates. In Frankfurt, the DAX index declined 0.6% to 2,633. Paris’s CAC 40 index rose 0.3%, to 2,820.84.

Asian stock markets closed mixed Monday. Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average rose 51.41 to 8,564.95. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, the main Hang Seng Index slipped 11.39 points to 9,239.47.