U.S. stock futures pointed to a slightly higher start for Wall Street with investors focused on housing-price and consumer-confidence data releases, but volumes are likely to be thin as many traders are still on holidays.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 19 points, or 0.2%, to 11522, while the S&P 500 futures rose 2.7 points, or 0.2%, to 1256. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 rose 4 points to 2234.
Economic data will return to the fore on Tuesday, with the release of Case-Shiller home prices for October at 9 a.m. EST and the Conference Board's consumer-confidence index for December at 10 a.m.
Economists are forecasting the confidence index will rise to 56.9 from 54.1. "Things are looking up according to the U.S. consumer as the last couple of spending reports can attest to," said analysts at Saxo Bank. "The University of Michigan consumer-confidence sentiment also supports this notion with rising confidence in each of the last two months of the year."
The analysts added, though, that both the University of Michigan and Conference Board indexes were higher earlier in 2010 when they had temporary peaks at 76.0 and 62.7, respectively.
On Monday, the Dow Industrials lost 18 points, while the Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 index rose slightly. The session was marked by low volumes due to the holidays and a blizzard that blanketed the northeastern U.S. and dumped over 20 inches of snow on New York City.
Shares of AIG Inc. could add to gains after hitting a 52-week high on Monday after the insurer secured $4.3 billion in credit facilities.
Alcatel-Lucent SA could be in focus after the Paris telecommunications group agreed to pay $137 million to settle charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that it paid bribes to win business in certain emerging markets. The Paris shares rose 1.6%.
Shares of retailers may also be on the move. U.S. consumers spent 5.5% more in the 2010 holiday season than they did a year earlier, buying lots of clothes to counter cold December weather and even big-ticket items like jewelry and luxury goods, according to the SpendingPulse division of MasterCard Advisors. The report measures sales excluding cars for the 50 days from Nov. 5 through Dec. 24.
European stocks rose marginally, after losses in the prior session, but volumes were thin with London markets closed for a bank holiday.
In Asia, Japan stocks were weighed by profit-taking, while securities firms fell in China on concerns officials have now entered into a cycle of rate rises following the tightening measures announced on Saturday.
Gold futures for February delivery rose $16 to $1,398.90 an ounce, while copper futures for March delivery took out the prior day's record-closing high of $4.280 a pound in New York. Copper rose another 0.3% to $4.29 a pound. Crude-oil futures rose 38 cents to $91.38 a barrel.
The dollar hit a three-week low against the Japanese yen, prompting Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda to complain that recent movements in the yen have been "one-sided," indicating Japan could again intervene in currency markets. The dollar last traded down nearly 1% to 81.88 yen. The dollar was off 0.2% against the euro at $1.3264.
