North American stocks look set for a negative start Wednesday ahead of the new U.S. Federal Reserve chairman’s first testimony before Congress.

Ben Bernanke is scheduled to present his first semi-annual report later in the day. Investors will be looking for any signs that U.S. monetary policy could be tightened beyond market expectations.

Meanwhile, oil prices crept upward in advance of he release of a weekly U.S. fuel supply snapshot expected to show higher crude stocks.

Light, sweet crude was up 21¢ at US$59.78 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Overseas, European indexes were mixed in afternoon trading.

Asian stock markets finished mixed overnight. Tokyo;s Nikkei 225 index dropped 252.04 points to 15,932.83.

In Hong Kong, share prices closed almost flat as the Hang Seng Index edged up 2.94 points to 15,423.26.

The Canadian dollar opened at US86.63¢, down 0.05 of a cent.

In earnings news, Yellow Pages Income Fund’s fourth-quarter profit rose 7.4% to $41.2 million from $38.3 million last year.

Precision Drilling posted a smaller fourth-quarter profit of $83.5 million versus year-ago $88.1 million.

In other news, Merrill Lynch announced that after days of reported talks, the Wall Street financial firm has reached an agreement to merge its investment-management business with BlackRock to create an asset-management business with nearly US$1 trillion in assets under management.

On Tuesday, Toronto stocks rallied, breaking a streaking of five consecutive negative sessions, on the strength of gains in the energy and materials sectors.

The S&P/TSX composite index gained 96.90 points, or 0.84%, to 11,616.39.

The S&P/TSX Venture composite index finished up 18.79, or 0.77%, to 2,458.60.

In New York, a strong retail sales report and lower commodity prices fuelled a stock market surge.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 136.07 points to 11,028.39, its largest one-day point gain since Jan. 3. The Nasdaq Composite Index ended 22.36 points higher at 2,262.17, while the S&P 500 Index gained 12.67 points to 1,275.53.