By Peter Nurse
Investing.com -- U.S. stocks are seen opening firmly higher Tuesday, continuing the previous session's strong gains amid hopes upbeat corporate earnings would help lift the current economic gloom.
At 07:00 ET (11:00 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was up 345 points or 1.2%, S&P 500 Futures traded 50 points or 1.3% higher, and Nasdaq 100 Futures climbed 175 points or 1.6%.
The main U.S. equity indices posted a strong winning day Monday, with the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average gaining over 550 points or 1.9%. The broad-based S&P 500 recorded a 2.7% gain, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 3.4%, its best daily performance since July.
This is a busy week for earnings, with more than 60 S&P 500 companies on deck to report.
The Bank of America's monthly global fund manager survey stated Tuesday that 83% of investors expect global profits to worsen over the next 12 months. A net 91% said global corporate profits are unlikely to rise 10% or more in the next year, the most since the global financial crisis, with a net 49% of participants underweight equities.
Investors have been worried that the Federal Reserve's war against inflation will hurt the U.S. economy. This means expectations are low for the September-quarter earnings season, suggesting potential upside for shares of companies that do come in ahead of analysts' estimates.
Solid earnings from Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), the country's second largest lender, and the reversal of parts of a controversial U.K. unfunded tax-cutting fiscal plan boosted sentiment on Monday, and more big bank numbers are due Tuesday, this time from Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS).
The likes of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX), and United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAL) are also scheduled to announce results this session.
The economic data calendar centers around the release of U.S. industrial and manufacturing production data for September, which are expected to show limited growth during the month.
In Europe, the ZEW think-tank's forward-looking German economic sentiment index rose unexpectedly to -59.2 from -61.9 in September, suggesting confidence toward the Eurozone's largest economy improved surprisingly in October.
Oil prices edged lower Tuesday after Reuters reported that the Biden administration plans to sell oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve before next month's congressional elections.
An announcement, designed to reduce crude prices, is likely this week and would market the remaining 14 million barrels from Biden's previously announced and largest ever release from the reserve of 180 million barrels that started in May.
The American Petroleum Institute releases its weekly estimate of U.S. crude stocks later in the session, and this will be of interest after last week's massive 7 million barrel build.
By 07:00 ET, U.S. crude futures traded 0.2% lower at $84.38 a barrel, while the Brent contract fell 0.1% to $91.58.
Additionally, gold futures fell 0.4% to $1,656.85/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.1% higher at 0.9852.