* Oil prices fall for sixth day in a row
* Baxalta up after buyout deal with Shire
* Alcoa (N:AA) to kick off earnings season after close
* Futures up: Dow 90 pts, S&P 12.5 pts, Nasdaq 24 pts (Adds details, comment, updates prices)
By Abhiram Nandakumar
Jan 11 (Reuters) - U.S. stock indexes were set to open slightly higher on Monday as Wall Street comes off its worst-ever start to a year and the corporate earnings season kicks off.
Global stocks were mixed as jittery investors looked for stability after a bruising start to the year due to declining oil prices and mounting worries about a China-led slowdown in global economic growth.
The S&P 500 .SPX slid 6 percent and the Nasdaq .IXIC dropped 7.3 percent last week. Not even a surge in U.S. nonfarm payrolls in December stemmed the bleeding.
"A relief rally would be expected at some point during the recent precipitous fall," said Andre Bakhos, managing director at Janlyn Capital LLC in Bernardsville, New Jersey.
Bakhos, however, warned of escalating concerns over the issues such as China and falling oil prices that have plagued the market all of last year.
Crude oil fell for the sixth session in a row on Monday, hovering near 12-year lows, with China's slowing growth dashing hopes of a rise in demand this year. O/R
"It's become apparent that the concern about oil prices is raising a level of doubt that there might be more to it than just oversupply," Bakhos said.
At 8:35 a.m. ET (1335 GMT), Dow e-minis 1YMc1 were up 90 points, or 0.55 percent, with 82,968 contracts changing hands.
S&P 500 e-minis ESc1 were up 12.5 points, or 0.65 percent, with 424,573 contracts traded. Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQc1 were up 24 points, or 0.56 percent, on volume of 80,892 contracts.
U.S. corporate earnings are likely to have moved into a recession - two quarters of falling profits - in the fourth quarter, led by energy and materials companies. fourth-quarter corporate earnings are expected to decline 4.2 percent, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Alcoa AA.N is scheduled to report fourth-quarter results after the close, starting the earnings season. The stock was up 3.3 percent at $8.34 premarket.
Baxalta BXLT.N was up 4.9 percent at $41.97 after UK drugmaker Shire SHP.L agreed to buy the company for about $32 billion. Shire's U.S.-listed ADRs SHPG.O inched up 0.24 percent to $186.45. Armour UA.N fell 4.7 percent to $771.50 after Morgan Stanley (N:MS) cut its rating and price target on the stock.
Apple AAPL.O was up 1.5 percent at $98.40. The company's music streaming service hit the 10 million-subscriber mark in six months, the Financial Times reported. The stock fell nearly 8 percent last week. U.S.-listed shares QGEN.O sank 7.4 percent to $23.68 after the German genetic testing specialist warned on its 2015 profit.