Stocks are indicated modestly higher, as investors await a reading on consumer confidence and find little stock news to guide the early market action Tuesday morning. Thirty minutes before the opening bell on Wall Street, stock index futures hint at possible 30-point early gain for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Consumer confidence numbers come into focus at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. Economists expect the report to show improvement in December, up to 53 from 49.5 the month before.

However, the latest home price numbers were a bit worse than expected. According to the CaseShiller City Index, prices fell 7.28 percent in October — better than the -9.27 percent in September, but worse than the 7.1 percent economists had expected.

Stock index futures showed little reaction to the home price numbers. Bonds aren’t moving much either. The benchmark ten-year Treasury is flat and yields 3.84 percent.

The dollar edged up .14 to 91.76 against the yen. The euro gained .006 to 1.4436 on the buck.

Action in the commodities markets is mixed. Crude oil edged up .56 to $79.33. Gold slipped $1 to $1107 an ounce.

Among the stocks to watch, Fannie Mae (FNM), which rallied yesterday on news the Treasury Department was removing a cap on funds available to FNM and Freddie (FRE), is up again despite warning of rising mortgage loan delinquencies.

The brokerages might see relative weakness after BofA/Merrill analyst Guy Moszkowski cut earnings estimates on Goldman (GS), Morgan (MS), and JP Morgan (JPM). Vivus (VVUS) added 3 percent after submitting a new app for an obesity drug. Amazon.com (AMZN) edged higher after Piper Jaffray raised their price target to $172 from $173.