NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A continued slide in oil prices could give stocks a lift Monday at the start of a busy earnings week.

U.S. stock futures were up in early trading, indicating a higher opening for stocks, as oil fell below the $53 a barrel level.

The May light crude contract lost 52 cents to $52.80 a barrel in electronic trading, while the May contract for Brent crude fell 83 cents to $52.06.

John Silvia, chief economist for Wachovia Securities, said that while falling oil prices are a definite lift for stocks, he believes it's anticipation of a strong earnings reporting period that helped to lift futures Monday.

"I've heard a lot about a good earnings week," he said. "People feel pretty comfortable with their forecasts."

Among those first earnings reports due this week are from biotech firm Genentech (Research), set to report after the market close Monday.

Quarterly reports are due later in the week from Apple Computer (Research), chipmaker Advance Micro Devices (Research), banker Citigroup (Research) and diversified conglomerate General Electric (Research).

Major markets in Asia closed lower Monday. Major European markets also were lower in early trading. Among U.S. shares, Ford was off more than 7 percent in Frankfurt trading early Monday following the earnings warning from the No. 2 U.S. automaker late Friday afternoon.

Treasury prices were little changed, leaving the yield on the 10-year note at 4.47 percent. The dollar lost ground on the euro and the yen.

In corporate news, satellite radio provider XM Radio (Research) and America Online are reportedly set announce a new online radio service that will deliver about 200 radio channels. AOL, the world's largest Internet service provider, is a unit of Time Warner (Research), as is CNN/Money.

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