By Steve Goldstein, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock futures edged back Tuesday after a rally that has pushed equities higher for six straight sessions on the prospect that cheap money will remain in place for some time.
S&P 500 futures fell 2 points to 1,089.70 and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 2 points to 1,764.50. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 11 points.
U.S. stocks rallied Monday as investors flocked to snap up assets from equities to commodities as finance ministers from leading nations gave no indication that they would remove stimulus measures or get in the way of the dollar's decline anytime soon. A steady stream of merger news also helped sentiment as the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 203 points, the Nasdaq Composite gained 41 points and the S&P 500 rose 23 points.
The S&P 500 has climbed for six straight sessions, rising 5.5% over that time span.
"We are now clearer than we have been for a long while on the Fed's stance on monetary policy and its seems that traders have settled back into the overall dollar weakness, equity strength story that has dominated for such a long time," said Ian Griffiths, a dealer at CMC Markets in London. "This could well spell yet more of a sustained move higher for equity markets."
The euro recaptured the $1.50 level on Tuesday, a signal of the greenback's weakness. But most commodities were in the red, and government bonds rose.
Tyco International (TYC 35.39, +1.12, +3.27%) and Beazer Homes (BZH 5.18, +0.49, +10.45%) are among the firms due to report results on Tuesday.
HSBC Holdings (HBC 60.26, +1.96, +3.36%) flagged the first drop in write-offs from a U.S. consumer finance portfolio it's running down in more than three years as the U.K. banking giant said its underlying third-quarter pretax profit rose "significantly."
Rival Barclays (BCS 22.05, -1.12, -4.83%) reported a 54% profit drop after last year's benefit from buying Lehman Brothers' North American operations.
Sun Microsystems (JAVA 8.02, -0.22, -2.67%) may be active after the European Commission issued objections to its proposed $7.4 billion, or $9.50-a-share, takeover by Oracle Corp. (ORCL 21.83, +0.41, +1.91%) .
MBIA (MBI 4.80, +0.45, +10.34%) may drop as the bond insurer reported a $727.8 million quarterly loss.
Asian stocks climbed after the Wall Street rally, with the Nikkei 225 up 0.6% in Tokyo and the S&P/ASX 200 up 1.3% in Sydney.
Europe stocks wobbled between gains and losses throughout the morning. Disappointment over a decline in investor sentiment in Germany and lackluster sales at Vodafone Group (VOD 22.28, -0.90, -3.88%) were offset by gains for HSBC and Axa (AXA 25.78, +0.63, +2.50%) , which on Monday launched a joint bid for partly held Axa Asia Pacific (AXAP.Y 26.48, +6.75, +34.20%) .
