Wall Street index futures are flat this morning as investors await the latest word from the U.S. Federal Reserve on interest rates, which is due out on Wednesday. Trading is likely to be muted until then.

Here in Canada the latest report on wholesale sales shows that sales declined slightly in November, down 0.1%, with wholesalers selling goods and services worth $36.5 billion. This follows a 0.3% decrease in October. Though, economist point out that prices actually went down, while the Canadian dollar went up, thus flattening any inflationary effect.

Measured in constant prices, the volume of sales rose 0.3% in November, says Statistics Canada. This leaves the door open for the Bank of Canada to cut interest rates further, say economists.

Seven of the 11 trade groups reported an increase in November. The largest gains were in farm machinery (+2.3%), household goods (+1.5%) and computer and electronic products (+1.3%). The apparel and dry goods sector (-3.6%) and the “other products” category (-1.8%) registered the largest decreases.

Meanwhile, overnight in Asia, markets were generally down. Tokyo’s Nikkei average lost 96.41 points, or 0.8%, to 10,972.60 following a report that Japan’s financial watchdog is investigating bad loans held by one of the country1s major banks.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index fell 23.31 points to 13,727.27, after a four-day weekend for the Lunar New Year holiday.

In Europe, French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Synthelabo has presented a hostile take-over bid for its larger rival Aventis. The offer could result in the creation of the world’s third-largest drugmaker, and values Aventis at 47.8 billion euros, or US$60.7 billion. Aventis has rejected the proposal.

This battle has left European share prices were shaky at midday. The FTSE 100 index is down 0.3%, declining 14.2 points to 4,446.6. Frankfurt1s DAX is down by 0.6%. The Paris CAC40 is down 0.5%.

Toronto stocks closed higher Friday as technology shares rebounded. The S&P/TSX composite index rose 15.62 points to 8,604.73. For the week, the TSX gained just under 1%.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 54.89 points, to 10,568.29. The S&P 500 Index eased 2.39 points to 1,141.55. The Nasdaq composite index rose 4.85 points to 2,123.86.