Futures swung to indicate a positive open for Wall Street on Monday, riding a wave of merger and acquisition activity and despite stocks in Europe and Asia falling.
In M&A news, Xerox announced it would buy Affiliated Computer Services in a deal valued at $6.4 billion, as it seeks to expand beyond its core document management business. Xeros shares fell 5 percent in premarket trading.
Belgian drugs, chemicals and plastics maker Solvay said it would sell its drugs unit to U.S. partner Abbott Laboratories for $6.6 billion in cash and reinvest in chemicals and plastics.
Johnson & Johnson bought an 18 percent stake in Dutch biotech company Crucell for $444 million as part of a flu vaccine development deal.
Kraft may launch a hostile bid for Cadbury valuing the UK confectionary business at around $17.6 billion, a report in The Observer newspaper said.
In a separate interview with the Sunday Times, Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfield said Cadbury CEO Todd Stitzer had failed to "do the math quite accurately" after he claimed Cadbury's own growth strategy would deliver superior returns compared to Kraft's cash and stock offer.
The dollar fell to an 8-month low against the yen in early hours after Japanese officials initially waved off any plans to stem the yen's rise. But later, Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii said that he never approved of a strong yen.
In other corporate news, Bank of America has suspended its current commitments to ACORN Housing, an affiliate of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a scandal-hit U.S. liberal grassroots group, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Goldman Sachs confirmed earlier reports that it plans to recruit up to 200 people for its asset management business on Sunday.
On the economic front the Chicago Fed national activity survey is out at 8:30 am New York time.