Markets are facing a slide on the open this morning. The fallout from Enron Corp. filing for bankruptcy over the weekend is dominating the market’s attention.

Futures are down on fears that financial powers such as J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. may have big exposures to its failure.

Also, Enron is suing its former merger partner, Dynegy Inc., for US$10 billion.

There’s also concern surrounding Argentina, where devaluation fears cropped up after the government put limits on how much money people may withdraw from bank accounts or transfer abroad.

These bad news items are overtaking economic news that showed U.S. consumers bouncing back in October. Personal spending rose a record 2.9% in October, off a huge decrease in September. Incomes were flat.

Stocks are down in Europe, led by financials. The FTSE is down 24 points to 5,179. The CAC 40 is down 35 points to 4,441. The DAX shed 61 points to 4,929.

Overnight in Asia, stocks slid, too. The Nikkei dropped 327 points to 10,371. The Hang Seng gave away 127 points to 11,155.

There’s a fair slate of M&A news today. Sweden’s state-owned utility, MedImmune Inc. is buying Aviron for about US$1.5 billion in stock.

There’s talk that chip giant Micron Technology Inc. may buy Hynix Semiconductor Inc. of Korea.

Tyco International Inc. is buying Paragon Trade Brands Inc. for about US$650 million in cash.

Vattenfall AB is buying Mirant Corp.’s stake in Berlin’s main power provider for US$1.63 billion.

In other news, Suncor Energy Inc. announced a capital spending plan worth $900 million for 2002, with the majority of investment allocated to the company’s Oil Sands business.

Ballard Power Systems announced that it has signed a three-year agreement valued at $69.1 million with Ford Motor Co. to supply Ford with fuel cell engines and related engineering and support services.