Morning Briefing: 10 Things You Should Know

U.S. stock futures point higher; unions strike in southern Europe; Cisco tops Wall Street's earnings expectations; Toyota to recall almost 2.8 million vehicles.
By Joseph Woelfel ,

NEW YORK (

TheStreet

) -- U.S. stock futures were suggesting Wall Street would open higher Wednesday despite "fiscal cliff" concerns in the U.S. and as unions in Spain, Greece and Portugal went on strike to protest anti-austerity measures.

European stocks were falling despite a successful sale by Greece of short-term treasury bills on Tuesday. Asian shares ended Wednesday's trading session with gains as a leadership transition took place in China. Japan's 225 index posted marginal gains and the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.4%.

The economic calendar in the U.S. Wednesday includes retail sales for October at 8:30 a.m. EST, the producer price index for October at 8:30 a.m., business inventories for September at 10 a.m., and the release of the minutes of the Oct. 23-24 policy meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee at 2 p.m.

U.S. stocks

on Tuesday finished lower as investors piled out of the technology, energy and financial sectors in the final hour of trading.

The

Dow Jones Industrial Average

lost nearly 59 points, or 0.46%, to settle at 12,756.

Cisco

(CSCO) - Get Report

, the networking giant and

Dow component

, topped Wall Street's expectations in its latest quarter on both the top and bottom lines.

Cisco reported non-GAAP

earnings

of $2.57 billion, or 48 cents a share, on revenue of $11.88 billion, up from a year-earlier equivalent profit of $2.32 billion, or 43 cents a share, on revenue of $11.27 billion.

AMD

(AMD) - Get Report

denied Tuesday that it's on the block following a report that the

No. 2 chipmaker

could be be up for sale.

Staples

(SPLS)

is reporting its third-quarter results before the opening bell Wednesday, and analysts are expecting a profit of 45 cents a share in the October-ended period on revenue of $6.45 billion.

Earnings are also expected Wednesday from

Abercrombie & Fitch

(ANF) - Get Report

,

AGCO Corp.

(AG) - Get Report

,

Bluegreen Corp.

(BXG) - Get Report

,

DryShips

(DRYS) - Get Report

,

FriendFinder Networks

( FFN),

Hot Topic

( HOTT),

Limited Brands

(LTD)

,

Millipore

(MIL)

,

NetApp

(NTAP) - Get Report

,

New Frontier Media

( NOOF),

Petsmart

(PETM)

,

Retalix

( RTLX),

Spectrum Brands

(SPB) - Get Report

,

Tyco International

(TYC)

, and

Williams-Sonoma

(WSM) - Get Report

.

Toyota

(TM) - Get Report

is recalling almost 2.8 million vehicles around the globe for a water pump problem and a steering shaft defect that may result in faulty steering.

No accidents have been reported related to the two problems, according to Japan's No. 1 automaker on Wednesday.

The

Securities and Exchange Commission

deepened its probe into whether

Knight Capital Group

(KCG)

did enough to police its trading systems before computer errors caused the brokerage to incur losses of more than $450 million,

The Wall Street Journal

reported Wednesday.

The probe initially focused on what caused the trading errors but it has broadened to look further at Knight Capital's risk-control procedures and its compliance with a rule that requires brokerages to guard against these sorts of problems, the

Journal

reported, citing people familiar with the investigation.

-- Written by Joseph Woelfel

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

Joseph Woelfel

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.

Copyright 2012 TheStreet.com Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. AP contributed to this report.

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