Stocks are indicated modestly higher ahead of housing data and earnings news Monday. Less than thirty minutes before the opening bell on Wall Street, stock index futures indicate that the Dow Jones Industrial Average might add 30 or 40 points in early action.

The economic calendar is light this week, but several housing reports. The NAHB Homebuilder Sentiment Index for July is due at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time. Housing Starts numbers are slated for Tuesday and Existing Homes sales on Thursday.

Much of the focus this week will be on earnings. Hundreds of companies are due to release results, including IBM and Texas Instruments (TXN) after the closing bell today.

Halliburton (HAL) is up 3.8 percent after reporting a quarterly profit of 52-cents per shares, which easily beat Street estimates of 37 cents per share. Delta Airlines (DAL) and Hasbro (HAS) are also out with better-than-expected numbers.

Motorola (MOT) rallied more than 5 percent after Nokia Sieman said it would buy the company’s wireless infrastructure assets for $1.2 billion. Boeing (BA) will help the Dow in early trading after Dubai Airlines orders 30 Boeing 777-300ER commercial airplanes. Quicksilver Resources (KWK) is up nearly 6 percent on unconfirmed talk Reliance Industries is in talks to buy the company.

Commodity-related names might see early weakness after crude oil slipped 17 cents to $75.84 a barrel and gold lost $4.40 to $1138.8 an ounce.

Bonds are lower in sluggish trade. The benchmark ten-year Treasury lost 8/32nd and now yields 2.95 percent. Meanwhile, the dollar is mixed, gaining .53 to 87.09 against the yen. The euro is up .0053 to 1.2945 against the buck.