U.S. stock index futures pointed to a flat to slightly lower open on Wall Street on Tuesday as investors looked to book profits a day after the S&P 500 index jumped to its highest close in seven months on positive economic data.

* Investors will be eyeing an industry report on pending sales of previously owned homes, which are expected to have risen 0.5 percent in April, according to a Reuters poll. The National Association of Realtors Pending Home Sales Index rose 3.2 percent to 84.6 in March.

* Pending home sales will probably be a little bit weaker than the last time, which could knock some of the wind out. But the key remains with the general trend of improving economic numbers, said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Avalon Partners.

However, the market has gotten a little ahead of itself, and is likely to pull back over the next couple of days in spite of perhaps improving economic data ahead of the labor market report. The government will report employment data on Friday.

* S&P 500 futures rose 0.90 points and were below 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 fell 7 points, while Nasdaq 100 futures gained 4.25 points.

* Dow component American Express Co fell 3.4 percent to $25.11 in premarket trade after the credit card company announced a plan to raise $500 million in a common stock public offering.

* JPMorgan Chase & Co shares slid 1.8 percent to $35.47 after the bank said it plans to raise $5 billion in common equity in order to repay this month the $25 billion it took from the government's bank bailout plan.

* Morgan Stanley shares slipped 2.2 percent to $29.24 after it announced a public equity offering of $2.2 billion in order to satisfy a supervisory condition which will allow it to redeem TARP preferred capital.

* Pepsi Bottling Group Inc

boosted its second-quarter and full-year 2009 earnings outlook, citing improved carbonated soft drink performance in the United States.

* Improving confidence may lessen U.S. banks' interest in programs designed by the government to reduce toxic assets on their balance sheets, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told CNBC during a visit to Beijing.

* SanDisk Corp , readying a major foray into the booming market for notebooks or mini-laptop computers, launched memory chip products targeted at users of the light, portable PCs.

* European shares slid Tuesday, led lower by banks as traders said Abu Dhabi sold about 3.5 billion pounds of it stake in Barclays Plc , while investors also pointed to profit-taking following Monday's rally.

* Asian shares rose Tuesday as improving global manufacturing data lifted stocks near levels before the collapse on Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc in September, although the pace of gains slowed as investors considered how much steam a three-month rally had left.

* U.S. stocks rose Monday, sending the S&P 500 <.SPX> to its highest close in seven months, as reassuring economic data reinforced hopes that demand will stabilize, while General Motors Corp's long-expected bankruptcy filing ended uncertainty about the automaker's fate.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

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