Investors' Focus Turns to Housing

Stocks were poised to rise in pre-trading activity on Tuesday, even while the stock market tries to rebound from its worst week-long decline since March due to investor fears over rising interest rates and subprime mortgage woes, report the Associated Press and other financial news agencies.

In pre-trading activity, Dow Jones futures contracts were up 21 points to 13,500. Futures on the S&P 500 companies were up 3 points to 1516.60, with the Nasdaq futures up 4 points to 1945.

Reports that will be released today concerning home prices, new home sales, and consumer sentiment will be used by investors to guide them in determining the extent of the housing semi-bust and what effect it is having on American consumers' confidence, which in turn affects businesses.

"Investors are focusing on the housing market data today. Weak figures are expected. Anything else would be a relief," Juergen Lukasser, who helps manage $20 billion as head of equities at Constantia Privatbank AG in Vienna, told Bloomberg.

Investors are expected the report on housing to show that new home sales fell off in May from the rate of sales made in April. The Commerce Department is expected to report that new home sales last month reached 920,000 units, down from 980,000 that were sold in April.

The Conference Board will release the Consumer Confidence Report as well, and investors expect it to show a downturn in consumer buying confidence.

Nevertheless, in spite of what appears to be a positive day forthcoming on Wall Street after the opening bell, investors will continue to be cautious ahead of the Federal Reserve's latest report on interest rates and inflation, which the Fed will release on Thursday. The central bank is expected to not try to raise or lower the federal funds rate from where it currently is at 5.25%, but investors will want to see what the Fed predicts will be taking place over the next months.

The downturn in the stock indices yesterday followed a huge sell-off on Friday which saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average lose over 2%.