NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks could have trouble in the early going as the Dow sinks farther away from the record level it has been unable to breach for the past week.

Stock futures were down, indicating a lower open for stocks. The Dow starts trading Tuesday about 53 points away from the record high close, after the blue chip index again lost ground in Monday trading.

Oil prices were lower in early trading as BP (Charts) restarted production on a portion of its Alaska oil field that was shut over the weekend. U.S. light crude fell 65 cents to $60.38 a barrel in electronic trading, while Brent crude traded in London was 77 cents lower at $60.45.

Treasury prices were little changed in early trading, leaving the yield on the 10-year note near the 4.60 percent level reached late Monday. The dollar was little changed against both the euro and the yen in early trading.

Stocks in Asia closed mixed, with Tokyo's Nikkei falling, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained ground. Major markets in Europe were down in early trading.

There are no economic reports due Tuesday. In corporate news, Hewlett-Packard (Charts) CEO Mark Hurd may have known as early as in July 2005 the company was looking into private phone records as part of its leak investigation, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Integrated circuits Marvell Technologies (Charts) forecast third quarter revenue down 10 percent for fiscal 2007 due to lower-than-expected demand from hard disk drive customers, and also warned investors it may need to restate results back to its 2000 initial public offering due to questions about its stock options practices. Shares of Marvell plunged 18 percent in after-hours trading Monday following the company's announcement.

Automakers report U.S. sales for September, with General Motors (Charts), Ford Motor (Charts) and the ChryslerGroup unit of DaimlerChrysler (Charts) all expected to show continued declines in sales in the period.

In addition, the GM board of directors is set to meet Tuesday to hear an update on talks about the company possibly joining the Nissan-Renault alliance. Last week Kirk Kerkorian, the company's largest individual shareholder, made a filing in which he said he wanted to buy up to 12 million new shares, but said he wanted the board to make an independent review of any potential alliance.

More news and information on markets ahead of U.S. open