Not much economic news is on the docket today, but at 10:00 a.m., the National Association of Realtors will release a report on median home prices. No doubt, criticism will continue regarding President Obama's administration plan to stem foreclosures. The plan reached only 19% percent of troubled homeowners in California, Nevada and Arizona -- the states most affected by the housing meltdown, according to data being released Tuesday.

Meanwhile, top economists, according to a survey released Tuesday, had raised their 2010 projections for gross domestic product for a fourth straight month, predicting it would expand 2.7% next year. While they are growing more confident about the the U.S. economy's recovery they still expect the pace of growth to fall short of the typical post-recession bounce.

Investors will also be interested in the upcoming draft bill on financial regulation reform from the Senate Banking Committee that chairman Christopher Dodd will probably release today.

Overseas, European and Asian stocks rose further Tuesday as expectations of low borrowing costs continued to boost the appeal of equity markets over other investments. Still, Fitch warned Britain is most at risk among the big economies to lose its top-notch credit rating, while Japan faces a review of its rating if government debt issuance rises greatly.

Some stocks in the news include MBIA (MBI), which reported a quarterly loss and Sun (JAVA) and Oracle (ORCL), whose deal was rejected by the European commission.