US Futures Rise; Housing Data, Earnings in Focus

Futures on major US stock indices point to a higher opening Tuesday ahead of key new home sales data and corporate earnings.

Futures on the S&P 500 are up 0.33 percent, futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average are up 0.26 percent and Nasdaq100 futures are up 0.51 percent.

Investors are likely to focus on the latest batch of data including new home sales, Conference Board consumer confidence and S&P/CaseShiller house price index.

Sales of new houses, which measure the annualized number of new residential buildings that were sold during the previous month, are expected to rise by 1.9 percent to 319,000 in March from 313,000 in February.

The Conference Board will release its consumer confidence index for the month of April. Economists are predicting that confidence may decline to 69.7 from 70.2 of previous month.

“The early read on consumer sentiment in April declined ½ index point and we believe concerns over potentially softer job market conditions and volatility in the stock market will contribute to a small decline in the Consumer Confidence measure as well,” said a note from Credit Agricole.

Futures on major US stock indices point to a higher opening as investors await the beginning of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting and key new home sales data.

Investors are also likely to focus on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting which kicks off today for any hints at monetary easing. This is the second two-day meeting of the year and the committee will release the members' assessments of the appropriate timing and pace of policy changes via the Fed funds rate.

On the earnings front, a string of companies including AT&T Inc, 3M, United Technologies, AFLAC Inc, Apple, United States Steel and the Hershey Company will release their quarterly earnings.

US stocks ended lower Monday as increased political uncertainty in France and the Netherlands as well as a disappointing Eurozone manufacturing and services PMI weighed on the sentiment.

European markets are currently trading higher with FTSE 100 up by 20.92 points, DAX30 up by 43.51 points and CAC 40 up by 37.27 points.