Stock index futures pointed to a lower open on Wall Street on Tuesday, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.36 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.26 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.23 percent at 1049 GMT (5:49 a.m. ET).

Tech shares will be in focus after Texas Instruments overnight raised the low end of its quarterly earnings and revenue forecast, and said it was struggling to fill orders in time as demand for chips rose faster than it could make them.

Airbus parent EADS , the world's second-largest aerospace group after Boeing , dived to a heavy loss in 2009 and scrapped its dividend as charges on its A380 superjumbo and a currency hit swelled already announced charges from cost overruns on the delayed A400M airlifter. EADS shares dropped 5 percent in morning trade in Paris.

European equities dropped 0.7 percent in morning trade, with weaker financial and mining stocks outweighing stronger food producers such as Nestle , Unilever and Danone .

Oil prices slipped back from eight-week highs on Tuesday on expectations of a rise in U.S. crude inventories and a slightly stronger dollar. U.S. crude inventories probably rose for a sixth straight week as imports edged up and refinery utilization remained flat, a Reuters survey showed.

Technology shares pushed the Nasdaq higher on Monday on an otherwise flat day for U.S. stocks, led by BlackBerry maker Research in Motion and Cisco Systems .

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> dropped 13.68 points, or 0.13 percent, to end at 10,552.52. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.SPX> shed just 0.20 of a point, or 0.02 percent, to 1,138.50. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> gained 5.86 points, or 0.25 percent, to 2,332.21, its highest close in 18 months.

(Reporting by Blaise Robinson; Editing by Hans Peters)