Futures for the Dow Jones industrial average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 rose 0.2-0.3 percent, pointing to a firmer start on Wall Street on Tuesday.

* At 7:45 a.m. .EDT, ICSC/Goldman Sachs will release chain store sales for the week ended August 8. In the previous week, sales fell 0.2 percent.

* The Federal Open Market Committee begins its two-day meeting on interest rate policy.

* Labor Department is scheduled to release, at 8:30 a.m. EDT, preliminary Q2 Productivity and Unit Labour Costs. Economists in a Reuters survey forecast a rise of 5.3 percent versus a rise of 1.6 percent in Q1. Unit Labor Costs are seen down 2.4 percent compared with a 3.0 percent fall.

* At 8:55 a.m. EDT, Redbook releases its Retail Sales Index of department and chain store sales for August versus July. In the prior period, sales fell 1.6 percent. * Commerce Department releases at 10 a.m. EDT wholesale inventories for June. Economists in a Reuters survey forecast inventories to fall by 0.9 percent in June versus a decline of 0.8 percent in May.

* At 5 p.m. EDT, ABC News releases its consumer comfort index for the week ended August 9. In the previous week, the index read -49.

* Commodity shares will be in focus after crude oil rose 0.5 percent to trade around $71 a barrel, copper rose 1.6 percent and aluminum jumped more than 2 percent.

* China reported below-forecast growth in factory output and investment, Britain's goods trade gap with the rest of the world widened slightly more than expected in June and Germany's harmonized consumer price index for July was revised down sharply.

* Applied Materials , world's largest chip equipment maker, reports third-quarter earnings.

* The total value of distressed-debt deals, where creditors use their debt positions to take ownership of troubled companies, has touched $84.4 billion this year, the Wall Street Journal said, at a pace close to double that of 2008.

* Shares of Rino International Corp fell 18.2 percent after the closing bell on Monday after the company reported results.

* Shares of Seattle Genetics declined 8.8 percent after the close after it announced a proposed public offering of common stock.

* Shares of Quest Software Inc rose 5.8 percent to $15.80 after the closing bell on Monday after it released second-quarter results.

* The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 <.FTEU3> index of top shares was 0.4 percent higher at 948.14 points on Tuesday. It has gained 14 percent in 2009 and is up 47 percent since reaching a record low in early March.

* U.S. stocks fell on Monday, but were off their session lows, as investors booked profits following a four-week rally that took the broad S&P 500 index to a 10-month high on Friday.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> lost 32.12 points, or 0.34 percent, to close at 9,337.95. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.SPX> fell 3.38 points, or 0.33 percent, to 1,007.10. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> dropped 8.01 points, or 0.40 percent, to 1,992.24.

(Reporting by Atul Prakash; Editing by David Holmes)

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