Upbeat corporate results from both sides of the Atlantic lifted U.S. stock index futures on Tuesday, setting up Wall Street for a fourth straight day of gains.

Dow component DuPont and Co's

second-quarter profit nearly tripled on strong sales in all five businesses, while two of Europe's top banks, UBS AG and Deutsche Bank AG , posted results that reassured investors following last week's regulatory stress tests.

DuPont rose 4.5 percent to $40.85 in premarket trading, while U.S.-traded shares of UBS jumped 7.4 percent to $16.27 and Deutsche Bank gained 3.3 percent to $68.38.

Bank shares were also boosted a day after the Basel Committee said it would scale back many of its proposals to beef up bank capital and liquidity rules, signaling important concessions in the face of lobbying by banks and some countries.

Strong global earnings numbers are continuing to drive this recent equity rally, said Andre Bakhos, director of market analytics at Lek Securities in New York.

In addition, you've had a host of positive economic numbers adding to a global recovery picture, and investors are taking note.

S&P 500 futures rose 5.2 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures gained 43 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures added 7.5 points.

S&P futures traded above their 200-day moving average for the first time in more than a month, tracking the S&P 500 <.SPX> on Monday. Other technical analysis, including the moving average convergence-divergence and momentum, continue to show bullish signals for the three top stock indexes.

Since that moving average signifies the long-term trend it is usually taken that all is well, and that we are back on track from the longer-term horizon, Bakhos said. Even non-technically oriented market participants have some respect for the 200-day moving average.

A pulse of investor sentiment, the VIX <.VIX> fell more than 3 percent to 22.73 on Monday, breaking below its 200-day moving average of 23.38. The CBOE Volatility Index, a 30-day risk forecast of stock market volatility, hit its lowest close since May 3.

Oil giant BP Plc plans to offset the entire cost of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill against its tax bill, possibly reducing future contributions to U.S. tax coffers by almost $10 billion. BP took a pretax provision of $32.2 billion for the second quarter, triggering a $17 billion loss. It also named American Bob Dudley as its next chief executive, replacing Tony Hayward, as expected.

Shares of Lexmark International Inc rose 6.3 percent to $37 after the computer printer maker reported higher quarterly profits.

Economic data on tap for Tuesday includes the May reading of S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, expected to be up 4 percent, compared with April's increase of 3.8 percent, according to a Reuters survey.

The Conference Board's consumer confidence index for July is expected to have fallen to 51.0 from 52.9. The data will be watched more closely than usual because of the slump in the University of Michigan sentiment survey 10 days earlier.

An upbeat outlook from FedEx Corp , coupled with encouraging home sales, lifted U.S. stocks on Monday.

The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 1.1 percent, closing above the 1,100 level for the second straight day, which represented the top of a trading range it had failed to break several times in the past month.

(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

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