Wall St set to open flat ahead of Intel earnings

Apart from INTEL(INTC.NQ)s first-quarter results, due after the market's close, and Johnson & Johnson, the day also features updates from Washington Mutual , State Street Corp , U.S. Bancorp and M&T Bank Corp .

Recent gloomy corporate results have fueled fears the U.S. economy is heading for, or is already in, a recession and investors will be scrutinizing the day's key economic data for further indications.

The producer price index (PPI) is due at 8:30 a.m. EDT, as is the Empire State Survey, and the NAHB survey comes out at 1700 GMT.

By 4:49 a.m. EDT, Dow Jones futures, S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures were unchanged and the indicative Dow Jones index was also almost flat.

"Today's focus will be on Intel results after the bell," said Heinz-Gerd Sonnenschein, equity markets strategist at Postbank in Germany.

"After what we heard from AMD last week, it will be interesting to see what Intel has to say," he said. "As electronic chips are everywhere this might also be a good indicator on how the economy is really doing."

Last week Advanced Micro Devices Inc , the second-largest maker of computer processors after Intel, said it expects its first-quarter results to fall below market forecasts.

On Friday, General Electric , viewed as an economic bellwether because of the range of its businesses, dragged down U.S. markets as it posted unexpectedly weak earnings.

Elsewhere, merger and acquisition activity returned to the fore. Delta Air Lines Inc will buy Northwest Airlines Corp for more than $3 billion under a proposal, unveiled Monday, to create the world's biggest airline, as carriers seek to counter skyrocketing fuel prices and a weak economy.

The industry could also see another tie-up as two people briefed on the matter said Continental Airlines and United Airlines have laid most of the groundwork for a merger.

U.S. stocks edged lower on Monday after an unexpected quarterly loss from Wachovia Corp dragged down the financial sector, overshadowing strong gains in energy companies as oil closed at a fresh record.

On Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> slipped 0.19 percent, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.SPX> declined 0.34 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> dropped 0.63 percent.

International Business Machines , Google Inc. , eBay Inc. , as well as JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch will also report quarterly results this week.

(Reporting by Eva Kuehnen, editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)