Wall Street futures are struggling this morning. Stock markets have a way to go to recover from last week’s losses. Meanwhile, suspicion that al-Qaeda was behind the bombings in Spain is hurting Europe’s markets.

Investors are waiting for an interest rate decision from the U.S. Federal Reserve on Tuesday. Inflation reports are due out of the U.S. on Wednesday and Canada on Thursday.

This morning Statistics Canada is reporting that after five consecutive months of declines, new motor vehicle sales turned around in January, rising 1.3% from December. This trend seems to be strengthening, says StatsCan, since preliminary data indicate a sizable gain of approximately 7% in February, mainly attributable to strong sales of trucks.

In business news, Canadian National Railway says it has reached a tentative deal with about 5,000 unionized workers who have been on strike since Feb. 20.

Nortel Networks says it has put its CFO officer and its controller on paid leave of absence while the company’s financial statements are re-examined. “Douglas Beatty, the company’s incumbent chief financial officer, and Michael Gollogly, the incumbent controller, have been placed on paid leave of absence pending completion of the independent review being undertaken by the Nortel Networks audit committee,” the telecom networks company said in a news release.

Molson Inc. has appointed former Unilever executive Kevin Boyce as president and COO of the company’s North American operations.

In Europe at midday, the markets are down. Germany’s Xetra DAX Index is down 53.22 points, or 1.4%, to 3,862.16. London’s FTSE100 has fallen 20.30 points, or 0.5%, to 4,447.10. In Paris, the CAC40 Index is down 35.49 points, or 1%, to 3,626.29.

In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei rose 155.15 points, or 1.39%, to 11,317.9. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index slipped 12.82 points, or 0.1%, to 12,919.41.

On Friday, bargain hunters helped markets recover after four consecutive days of selling, but not enough to come out on the plus side for the week. Toronto’s S&P/TSX composite index rose 88.16 points to 8,592.04 on the day but was down 250 points for the week.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 111.7 points to 10,240.08, down 355.5 points on the week. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index advanced 40.84 points to 1,984.73 for a loss of 63 points for the week. The S&P 500 index rose 13.79 at 1,120.57.