Before the bell: Third day of rally on auto bailout ahead?

U.S. stock futures were higher Tuesday morning, indicating stocks are ready to continue the strong gains of the last two sessions. In fact, nine of the last 11 sessions ended in positive territory.

But not all is well, as we know. While investors are encouraged by news Congress and the White House near agreeing and implementing an auto-industry-rescue plan, "government-run restructuring," companies continue to announce daily layoffs and lower their earnings estimates. This morning we hear from Sony, Texas Instruments and FedEx on some of these.

Overseas, world markets traded generally slightly higher Tuesday as investors, encouraged by the different stimulus measures governments are taking, come back to to buy up battered stocks. Yet, oil prices don't reflect any meaningful recovery is ahead. Oil prices edged down Tuesday even as OPEC is considering a big production cut. Oi prices declined to their level today on expected lower global demand.

On the economic front, numbers for October pending home sales are due after the market opens at 10 a.m. and are expected to show further decline.