Wall Street pointed modestly higher early Monday and appear headed for a positive open to the final full trading week of the year.
Futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average each edged 0.1% higher before the bell.
U.S. Steel shares jumped about 28% after Japan's Nippon Steel said it would acquire the storied steelmaker in an all-cash deal valued at about $14.1 billion, or $14.9 billion with debt. That's nearly double what was offered just four months ago by rival Cleveland Cliffs.
On Friday, the S&P 500 finished down less than 0.1%, within 1.6% of its all-time high set early last year, closing out a seventh straight winning week for its longest such streak in six years.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which tracks a smaller slice of the U.S. stock market, rose 0.2% and set a record for a third straight day. The Nasdaq composite climbed 0.4%.
“As the S&P approaches record levels, market participants appear undaunted," Stephen Innes of API Asset Management said in a commentary. "The prevailing sentiment seems to be that there is no compelling reason to fade this rally until concrete evidence surfaces indicating significant economic or inflation headwinds."
Stocks overall bolted higher last week after the Federal Reserve seemed to give a nod toward hopes that it has finished with raising interest rates and will begin cutting them in the new year. Lower rates not only give a boost to prices for all kinds of investments, they also relax the pressure on the economy and the financial system.
The Fed’s goal has been to slow the economy and grind down prices for investments enough through high interest rates to get inflation under control. It then has to loosen the brakes at the exact right time. If it waits too long, the economy could fall into a painful recession. If it moves too early, there are concerns that inflation could reaccelerate.
Elsewhere, in Europe at midday Germany's DAX and the CAC 40 in Paris each fell 0.4%. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.5%.
The Bank of Japan began a two-day meeting that investors are watching for hints of a change to the central bank’s longstanding near-zero interest rate policy.
Investors have been speculating for months that rising prices would push Japan's central bank to finally shift away from its lavishly lax monetary policy. But the meeting that ends Tuesday is not expected to result in a major change.
Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index lost 0.6% to 32,758.98, while the U.S. dollar edged higher against the Japanese yen, rising to 142.78 from 142.11.
Renewed selling of property shares pulled Chinese stocks lower.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 1% to 16,629.23 and the Shanghai Composite index sank 0.4% to 2,930.80.
Debt-laden developer Country Garden lost 2.4%, while China Evergrande declined 1.3%. Sino-Ocean Group Holding shed 2.2%.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.2% to 7,426.40. South Korea's Kospi added 0.1% to 2,566.86 and Bangkok's SET was down 0.3%.
In other trading early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil rose 45 cents to $71.88 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It fell 15 cents to $71.43 on Friday.
Brent crude, the international standard, picked up 69 cents to $77.24 per barrel.
The euro rose to $1.0915 from $1.0897.
