NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Stocks could get a lift from lower oil prices in early trading Tuesday, as predictions of the season's first heavy snow to hit the Northeast proved to be a little overblown.

U.S. stock futures were up in early trading, indicating a higher opening for stocks following Monday's stock sell-off.

Oil prices retreated after the storm due to hit New York and the rest of the East Coast was short of earlier forecasts, although they were up slightly from earlier lows.

The January light crude futures contract for NYMEX lost 18 cents to $59.73 a barrel in electronic trading, while the January contract for Brent crude was down 9 cents to $57.64.

"I think that the oil prices are going to have an awful lot to do with where the market goes," said Michael Carty, stock market strategist, New Millennium Advisors. "Any time that oil gets over $60, it's going to be damaging. Yesterday, the stocks did have a bit of the problem with the higher oil. Then they sort of cut their losses. I think this is continuation of that trend."

Investors will be able to weigh the strength of two major retailers early in this holiday shopping season. Target (Research), the nation's No. 3 general retailer, reaffirmed its guidance of 4 to 5 percent growth in sales at stores open at least a year.

Meanwhile Sears Holdings (Research), which includes the Sears and Kmart brands, reported a drop in earnings for the quarter ended Oct. 31, although it was not as steep as forecast. Shares rose in pre-market trading on Inet following the results.

Major markets in Asia closed mixed Monday. Major European markets were higher in early trading.

Treasury prices rose, lowering the yield on the 10-year note to 4.55 percent from 4.56 percent late Monday. The dollar gained ground against the euro and the yen.

The government reported Tuesday that productivity rose 4.7 percent in the most recent quarter, up from its original estimate of a 4.1 percent rise in the period and better than the consensus forecast of a 4.5 percent gain, according to economists surveyed by Briefing.com.

At 10 a.m.ET the government is due to report on October factory orders, which are forecast to be up 2.2 percent, after a 1.7 percent fall in September in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

In corporate news, Verizon Communications (Research) announced late Monday it would reduce retirement benefits for 50,000 managers in a bid to save $3 billion over the next 10 years.

The New York Times reported Monday that Time Warner (Research) is pulling back from discussions that would involve a sale of a stake in its America Online unit, and is now in talks with Google (Research) and Microsoft (Research) about cooperation on Web search, advertising sales and possibly other areas. CNN/Money is a unit of Time Warner.

For a more detailed look at the markets before the open, click here.