Stock futures steady before truncated session

LONDON (Reuters) - Wall Street was set for a flat start on Monday in a shortened Christmas Eve trading session after an explosive rally on Friday.

By 5:50 a.m. EST, both S&P futures and Dow futures were little changed while Nasdaq futures lost 0.2 percent. Asian stocks ended higher and European shares were flat.

Alcoa Inc (AA.N) may be in focus after it agreed to sell its packaging and consumer businesses to New Zealand's Rank Group for $2.7 billion in cash, the latest move by the world's third-largest aluminum producer to focus on its core business.

Auto shares are also in focus after Chrysler LLC called recent media reports about its financial picture inaccurate, saying the auto maker is exceeding most financial targets heading into 2008.

U.S. stocks jumped the most in three weeks on Friday, as strong results from Research In Motion (RIM.TO), the company behind the BlackBerry, boosted technology shares while financials rose on a report that Merrill Lynch (MER.N) might get a big foreign investment.

All three major indexes rose more than 1.5 percent, a lift that took them into positive territory for the week.

With just five trading sessions left in 2007, the major U.S. stock indexes are still higher for the year -- the Dow is up 7.9 percent, the S&P 500 is up 4.7 percent and the Nasdaq is up 11.5 percent.

Friday's rally in equities came after the U.S. government's report that personal spending rose by a larger-than-expected 1.1 percent in November, the biggest increase in more than two years.