Morning Briefing: 10 Things You Should Know
NEW YORK (
) -- 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.
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
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
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
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Joseph Woelfel
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