Stock index futures rose on Tuesday after Italian bond yields fell from session highs amid hopes a meeting of European finance ministers will be a step forward in resolving the region's debt crisis.

Italian government bond yields fell from session highs on Tuesday after a sale of 7.5 billion euros in bonds, but were mostly still up on the day.

German Bunds reversed early gains on relief the sale drew enough demand and on hopes policymakers would make progress in tackling the debt crisis at meetings this week.

S&P 500 futures rose 2 points and were above 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 gained 26 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures were flat.

Euro zone finance minister are set to agree on details for bolstering a bailout fund, according to documents obtained by Reuters.

European finance ministers will hopefully agree and provide details today on the (fund) with 20-30 percent insurance coverage on new bond issuance, with a leveraging of three to four times, said Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak & Co in New York.

Imperative to this new entity actually functioning as hoped will be France hanging on to its AAA credit rating, which of course is very tenuous.

According to a French newspaper report, Standard & Poor's could change the outlook for France's triple-A rating to negative within the next 10 days.

Also, Moody's said it could downgrade the subordinated debt of 87 banks across 15 European Union nations on concerns that governments would be too cash-strapped to bail them out.

Late Monday, Fitch revised its outlook on the U.S. credit rating to negative, citing the failure of a special congressional committee to reach an deficit-reduction agreement. Fitch gave the United States until 2013 to come up with a credible plan to tackle its ballooning budget deficit or risk a downgrade of the country's coveted AAA rating.

In company news, AMR Corp , the parent of American Airlines, filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. AMR also named a new chairman and chief executive.

On the macro front, investors awaited the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index for September, due for release at 9 a.m. EST. index 20-city index is expected to show no changes in September.

Also the Conference Board's November consumer confidence is due at 10 a.m. EST. The report is forecast to show a reading of 44.0, up from 39.8.

U.S. stocks rebounded from seven days of losses on Monday as investors used the latest effort by European leaders to resolve the region's debt crisis as an opportunity to cover short positions.

(Reporting by Angela Moon; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

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