Morning Briefing: 10 Things You Should Know

U.S. stock futures are higher as Barack Obama wins re-election as U.S. president; earnings reports are expected from Macy's, Time Warner and Whole Foods; News Corp. tops Wall Street's earnings forecasts.
By Joseph Woelfel ,

NEW YORK (

TheStreet

) -- U.S. stock futures were pointing to a higher open for Wall Street on Wednesday following the

re-election of Barack Obama

as U.S. president.

Obama defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney after multiple battleground states tipped in the incumbent's favor.

Obama won the key swing states of Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, New Hampshire, Nevada, Wisconsin and Iowa. Votes were still being counted in Florida.

The electoral vote count was 303 to 206 in favor of Obama.

European stocks were rising as investors in the region turned their attention to a key austerity vote in Greece. Asian shares ended Wednesday's trading session mixed. Japan's Nikkei 225 index closed marginally lower at 8,972.89.

The economic calendar in the U.S. Wednesday includes weekly crude inventories data at 10:30 a.m. EST, and consumer credit for September at 3 p.m.

U.S. stocks

on Tuesday soared, finishing higher prior to the news that Obama had secured a second term as U.S. president.

The

Dow Jones Industrial Average

soared 133 points, or 1.02%, to close at 13,246. The blue-chip index rose for a second straight session and is now up 8.42% so far in 2012.

Whole Foods Market

(WFM)

is expected to report fiscal fourth-quarter earnings after Wednesday's closing bell, and analysts are calling for a profit of 60 cents a share in the September-ended period on revenue of $2.91 billion.

Macy's

(M) - Get Report

is expected by analysts Wednesday to post third-quarter earnings of 29 cents a share on revenue of $6.07 billion.

Time Warner

(TWX)

, the media giant, is seen earnings 82 cents a share on revenue of $6.9 billion in the third quarter, according to analysts.

Early earnings reports are also due Wednesday from

Becton, Dickinson

(BDX) - Get Report

,

Blyth

(BTH)

,

CenterPoint Energy

(CNP) - Get Report

,

Devon Energy

(DVN) - Get Report

,

Dynegy

(DYN)

,

Hospira

(HSP)

,

Leap Wireless

(LEAP)

,

Orbitz Worldwide

(OWW)

,

Sodastream International

(SODA) - Get Report

,

Sonus Networks

(SONS)

,

Tenet Healthcare

(THC) - Get Report

and

WellPoint

(WLP)

.

Wednesday's late roster includes

Activision Blizzard

(ATVI) - Get Report

,

CafePress

(PRSS)

,

CBS Corp.

(CBS) - Get Report

,

Chiquita Brands International

(CQB)

,

Luby's

(LUB) - Get Report

,

MAKO Surgical

(MAKO)

,

Monster Worldwide

(MNST) - Get Report

,

Prudential Financial

(PRU) - Get Report

,

Qualcomm

(QCOM) - Get Report

, and

Rosetta Stone

(RST) - Get Report

.

News Corp.

(NWSA) - Get Report

on Tuesday posted fiscal first-quarter earnings of $2.23 billion, or 94 cents a share, on revenue of $8.14 billion, up from a year-earlier equivalent profit of $738 million, or 28 cents a share, on revenue of $7.96 billion.

Excluding items, News Corp. reported adjusted earnings of 43 cents a share, beating Wall Street's consensus view of 37 cents.

JPMorgan Chase

(JPM) - Get Report

is close to a settlement with the

Securities and Exchange Commission

that would end one probe into how the company's Bear Stearns unit packaged and sold home loans to investors, according to people familiar with the case,

The Wall Street Journal

reported.

McGraw-Hill

( MHP) has entered into exclusive discussions to sell its education unit to

Apollo Global Management

(APO) - Get Report

, and the two sides could reach an agreement within a few weeks, people familiar with the matter told the

Journal

.

-- Written by Joseph Woelfel

>To contact the writer of this article, click here:

Joseph Woelfel

>To submit a news tip, send an email to:

tips@thestreet.com

.

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