Stock futures were little changed on Monday as caution over the latest earnings season weighed and CIT Group Inc grappled with shoring up its finances, offsetting a broker upgrade of Goldman Sachs .

CIT, the commercial U.S. lender struggling to finance its business, said late on Sunday that it remains in active discussions with regulators on measures to improve its near-term liquidity position.

Shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc jumped more than 2 percent before the bell to $145.01 after theflyonthewall.com reported that influential bank analyst Meredith Whitney upgraded the stock to buy from neutral.

The second-quarter earnings season goes into full swing this week, with Intel Corp , Johnson & Johnson Inc , Google Inc , IBM , JPMorgan Chase & Co , Bank of America Corp , Citigroup Inc and General Electric Co all due to post their quarterly scorecards and outlooks.

S&P 500 futures rose 0.40 points and were about even with fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures rose 4 points and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 0.25 points.

In Friday's trading, the benchmark S&P 500 <.SPX> dropped for the fourth straight week, after Chevron Corp warned about its second-quarter earnings performance and a gauge of consumer confidence fell to it lowest level since March.

European stocks traded near break-even after hitting an 11-week low as mounting concerns about company earnings prompted investors to scale back their trading positions. <.EU>

In Asia overnight Japan's Nikkei average <.N225> slid 2.6 percent to its lowest close in eight weeks, hurt by growing political uncertainty after news that embattled Prime Minister Taro Aso is set to call a general election for August 30. <.T>

(Reporting by Ellis Mnyandu; Editing by Padraic Cassidy)

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