NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Wall Street's bulls appeared set to continue to rally Tuesday on generally strong earnings reports from a tech bellwether and a bevy of Dow components, in advance of two key economic reports.

But futures were off their highs after United Parcel Service Inc. (Charts), the world's largest package delivery company said quarterly profit rose on demand for small packages worldwide but results fell short of Wall Street estimates.

At 9 a.m. ET, S&P and Nasdaq futures pointed to a higher open for the major indexes.

Chipmaker Texas Instruments (Charts) reported a gain in earnings late Monday in line with forecasts. The midpoint of its current quarter guidance is also in line with forecasts, but it helped assure investors who had been nervous about the outlook for technology following the warning from Dell (Charts) on Friday.

Shares of TI gained $1.16, or 4 percent, in after-hours trading.

"The fact that TI is up a dollar after-hours on what is basically an in-line report is telling that we were building in very conservative expectations" for the report, Cody Acree, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus, told CNNMoney.com after the report.

Chemical company DuPont (Charts) reported better-than-expected earnings early Tuesday as did tobacco marketer Altria (Charts) and telecom AT&T (Charts). DuPont also reaffirmed its 2006 guidance.

But diversified manufacturer 3M (Charts) apparently fell 2 cents a share short of forecasts when excluding special items.

Another Dow component, fast food chain McDonald's (Charts) was also due to report results before the market open Tuesday. McDonald's signaled last week it would top expectations.

Due shortly after the opening bell Tuesday are two privately released economic reports that could help determine if the Federal Reserve halts its interest rate hike campaign: consumer confidence for July and existing home sales for June. According to Briefing.com, the Conference Board's consumer index is expected to slip to 104 from 105.7 in June.

The National Association of Realtors' report is seen showing a slowdown in home sales to a 6.6 million annual rate from the 6.67 million rate in May.

Art Hogan, chief market analyst at Jefferies & Co. said that while the earnings reports have been relatively good so far, the economic reports have a potential to change the direction of the markets shortly after the open.

He also said the markets have had trouble putting together back-to-back rallies over the last several months, which could mean stocks could have trouble following Monday's strong rally.

"We haven't heard good news in the semiconductor space in a while, so the report from TI is great," he said. "But it's 7:30, and if 10 a.m. rolls around, we have some negative numbers, we could have a whole different look."

Oil prices rose as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, appearing Tuesday at a news conference with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said Israel will continue its offensive against Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon.

U.S. light crude rose 50 cents to $75.55 a barrel in electronic trading, and Brent crude trading in London was at $75.02, up 41 cents.

Treasury prices advanced, pushing the 10-year note yield down to 5.03 percent from 5.04 percent late Monday.

Stocks in Asia closed higher, with Japan's Nikkei topping the 15,000 mark. Stocks in Europe were up in early trading as BP (Charts) reported a record profit. The dollar was higher against the euro and the yen.

In other corporate news, media conglomerate and Dow component Walt Disney (Charts) agreed to buy Hungama, an Indian children's TV channel that broadcasts in Hindi, for about $30.5 million