Futures were negative this morning, indicating U.S. stocks could start the day lower after Monday afternooon aluminum giant Alcoa kicked off earnings season with a dismal report while AMD warned of a revenue shortfall. All this ahead of some housing data, something that hasn't helped market sentiment a while now.

On Monday stocks started strong following a report Washington Mutual could get a $5 billion cash infusion and with the Dow industrial registering a triple digit point gain at some point. But that has quickly fizzled out and worries over the upcoming earnings season took over. The Dow industrials ended the day with a 3 points rise, the S&P 500 added 2 points while the Nasdaq Composite lost 6 points.

What investors are likely focusing on this morning is earnings from Alcoa (NYSE: AA). The aluminum giant Monday after the close that first-quarter earnings took a nosedive, plunging 54% to $303 million. Operating earningson a per share basis missed analyst estimates by 4 cents when it came in at 44 cents per share. Alcoa beat revenue estimates though. The main squeeze on profit margins were issues investors should get used to seeing this earnings season: higher energy costs, lower dollar and lower demand domestically. AA shares were down over 1.1% in premarket trading.

Meanwhile, Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) said on Monday that it was laying off 10% of its workforce, or about 1,600 employees. The semiconductor maker also surprised Wall Street when it warned that first-quarter sales were lower than expected across all business lines. Sales for the three months ended March 29 were 15% lower than a year ago at about $1.5 billion, and short of the $1.61 billion that analysts were anticipating. AMD shares were down over 2.8% in after-hours trading.

Still in "not-very-good-news" territory, Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) CEO said on Tuesday that his bank does not plan to raise more capital and will that writedowns would likely continue to affect its balance sheet.

Other than corporate news (more to come in the second Before the bell post), investors have the February report for pending home sales coming out at 10 a.m. EDT. A 1% decline is expected.
Meanwhile, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the drop in U.S. home prices will probably end "well before'' early next year.

At 2 p.m. EDT, the minutes of the latest Federal Open Market Committee meeting will be released.

Meanwhile, the AP reported that "oil prices steadied Tuesday after jumping by almost $3 a barrel in the previous session on concerns about falling gasoline supplies and expectations that U.S. interest rates will be cut again." Oil now hovers below $109 a barrel.