U.S. stock futures pointed to another pullback on Wednesday, with expectations that Apple can’t sustain its earnings growth.

Apple reported a 58% fiscal first-quarter profit rise, but it steered the market to expect it will earn 94¢ a share in this quarter, well below analyst estimates of US$1.09.

Motorola posted an 84% drop in fourth-quarter net income amid restructuring charges, and the company warned it will post a first-quarter loss.

Meanwhile, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought a 3% stake in the world’s biggest reinsurer, Swiss Re, and agreed to manage 20% of its property and casualty business for five years.

Here at home, the composite leading index dipped 0.1% in December after two months of no growth, Statistics Canada reported today.

This was the most protracted period of weakness in the composite index since early 2001, when it fell marginally in five out of six months.

The Canadian dollar opened at US97.41¢ this morning, up about one-tenth of a cent from Tuesday’s close.

Light sweet crude oil fell $1.28 to US$87.93 per barrel in premarket electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Gold futures fell US$2.20 to US$888.10 an ounce.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average closed up 2.04% after falling 5.7% Tuesday. Similarly, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index surged 10.72%, showing its biggest gain in 10 years after falling 13.7% in the previous two sessions.

In morning trading in Europe, however, stocks fell.

Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 1.25%, Germany’s DAX index fell 2.16% and France’s CAC-40 fell 2.1%.

Markets in Toronto made strong gains Tuesday in response to the Bank of Canada’s 0.25% rate cut. In New York, markets opened sharply lower after yesterday’s holiday shutdown, but clawed back much of the early loss after the Federal Reserve announced a surprise cut to U.S. rates.

The Fed slashed its target for the federal funds rate by 75 basis points to 3.5%.

In Toronto, the S&P/TSX Composite index closed up a whopping 508.76 points, or 4.19%, at 12,640.89.

Every sector finished higher, led by resource issues. The TSX materials group gained 8.4%.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index also finished higher, gaining 75.41 points, or 3.16%, to end the session at 2,465.93.

On Wall Street, the Fed rate cut stemmed the tide of losses, but U.S. markets still ended the day down for the fifth session in a row.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 128.1 points, or 1.1%, to end the session at 11,971.2.

The S&P 500 fell 14.69 points, or 1.1%, to close at 1,310.50 while, the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite dropped 47.75 points, or 2%, to end at 2,292.27.