Futures point to flat open on Wall Street
Stock index futures point to a mixed open on Wall Street on Wednesday, as investors braced for another raft of results, including those from Morgan Stanley .
* At 5:20 a.m. EDT, futures for the Dow Jones and S&P 500 were flat; those for the Nasdaq were up 0.5 percent.
* The FTSEurofirst 300 <.FTEU3> index of leading European shares was up 0.1 percent at 1,104.23 points, with gains for food companies as European airlines begin to recover from the effects of a volcanic ash cloud that grounded thousands of flights, but banks lower.
* Morgan Stanley is expected to report a first-quarter profit of 57 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. It lost that much in first quarter of 2009. The results will be the first under new Chief Executive James Gorman and his recently reshuffled management team.
* First-quarter results from Wells Fargo are expected to show that revenue from its investment management and capital markets divisions offset declining income from its mortgage business.
* Boeing is expected to post a quarterly profit of 64 cents per share, down from 87 cents in the same quarter of 2009, and is likely to take a big charge tied to healthcare reform.
* Other companies reporting include McDonald's and AT&T .
* The Senate Agriculture Committee debates legislation on over-the-counter derivatives reform and could hold a vote on Wednesday. If the bill is passed it would force big banks out of the $450 trillion market.
* The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that the crisis caused by the volcanic ash cloud above Europe cost airlines revenues of more than $1.7 billion by Tuesday.
* U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday as oil prices lifted energy shares and investors were upbeat about the overall profits recovery, even as some high-profile results fell short of lofty expectations.
* The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> added 0.2 percent; the Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.SPX> and Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> both gained 0.8 percent.
* Apple Inc's quarterly results blew past Wall Street expectations on the back of record iPhone sales, and the company gave a strong revenue forecast, sending its shares up more than 5 percent to an all-time high in after-hours trading. Apple shares in Frankfurt were up 4.6 percent.
* Yahoo Inc shares fell 1.2 percent to $18.15 in extended trading on Tuesday after the Internet search engine posted quarterly results after the bell. The shares had initially risen after the results were published but the bounce was short-lived.
(Reporting by Brian Gorman; editing by Karen Foster)
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