NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Stocks looked to get off to a shaky start Wednesday on new gains in the price of oil.

U.S. stock futures turned down just after 8 a.m. ET, indicating a mixed opening for stocks.

Art Hogan, chief market analyst at Jefferies & Co., said that early trading appeared to be following strength in overseas markets, but as the morning progressed there were more concerns about oil prices ahead of the weekly report on U.S. fuel inventories, due at 10:30 a.m.

"My guess here is the price of the barrel of oil is more important to trading today than any corporate news," he said.

The October light crude futures contract for NYMEX gained 39 cents to $63.50 a barrel in electronic trading, while the October contract for Brent crude rose 23 cents to $61.84.

Major markets in Asia closed mostly higher Wednesday, although Japan's Nikkei slipped from a four-year high. Major European markets also were higher in early trading.

Treasury prices were slightly higher, cutting the yield on the 10-year note to 4.11 percent from 4.13 late Tuesday. The dollar lost ground against on the euro but gained on the yen.

In corporate news, both Delta Air Lines (Research) and Northwest Airlines (Research) were reported to be on the verge of filing for bankruptcy court protections, perhaps as soon as Wednesday, as high jet fuel prices and labor costs have caused continued losses for both carriers.

The Northwest board is set to meet Wednesday to decide whether to file for bankruptcy, according to a statement late Tuesday from the airline's pilot union, which said its representatives would attend the meeting.

Futures turned flat following a government report that showed much stronger-than-forecast retail sales, excluding autos, in August.

The report showed that non-auto sales gained 1 percent, rather than the 0.5 percent rise that had been expected for the important back-to-school shopping period. But overall sales fell 2.1 percent in the month, rather than the 1.4 percent decline that was expected.

Just before the market open, the Federal Reserve is set to report on industrial production and capacity utilization, with economists looking for production to have climbed 0.3 percent and factories to have run at 79.9 percent of capacity, up from 79.7 percent in July.

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