Before the Bell

The Dow is now officially flirting with the 13,000 mark, but as in many flirtations, it's afraid of coming on too strong. Stock futures are pointing sideways as one of the busiest earnings weeks gets under way and a couple of trans-Atlantic deals are sealed.

Biotechnology company MedImmune is up sharply after Anglo-Swedish drug maker AstraZeneca announced plans to acquire it for more than $15 billion..

And Britain's Barclays finally has an agreement to buy ABN AMRO. The price is an eye-popping $91 billion in stock, but some analysts say even that is too low. In a huge subset of that deal, Barclays is planning to sell ABN's Chicago-based LaSalle unit to Bank of America for $21 billion..

As far as economic news is concerned, we're in the calm before a storm of data that starts tomorrow. The dollar is up a bit against the euro and steady against the yen. U.S. crude is holding above $64 a barrel after Nigeria's election. Condemned by monitors, the vote apparently hasn't worsened disruption to the country's oil exports..

Kimberly-Clark has just reported higher quarterly sales and earnings. And Hasbro profit came in higher than expected on strong sales of board games and Littlest Pet Shop and Playskool toys. Results from Texas Instruments and Amgen are due after the closing bell..

Lisa Von Ahn Editor

REUTERS