North American markets are expected to open higher Wednesday, buoyed by a pullback in oil prices and encouraging earnings results from Intel and Yahoo.

Investors will also digest Bank of Montreal’s purchase of a 19-branch bank in Indiana.

BMO and U.S. subsidiary Harris Bank are paying $197.4 million for Mercantile Bank as they continue to build on their successful operations in the U.S. Midwest, the bank said Wednesday.

Crude-oil prices continued to retreat, easing below US$52 a barrel early Wednesday, after five straight sessions in which oil futures hit new records daily on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In earnings news, Intel reported after regular trading Tuesday that third-quarter earnings and revenue came in ahead of expectations. Intel posted a profit of US30¢ a share on revenue of US$8.47 billion and said it expects fourth-quarter revenue of between US$8.6 billion and US$9.2 billion.

Also yesterday, Yahoo said third-quarter net income more than tripled and revenue more than doubled. The Internet company raised its financial forecast for the fourth quarter.

Overnight in Asia, Tokyo prices posted a fourth consecutive loss, with the Nikkei dipping 5.82 points or 0.05%to 11,195.99.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng dropped 80.01 points or 0.6% to 13,171.58.

U.S. markets bounced back from their lows Tuesday after the price of oil retreated, but Canadian investors were left in the dark most of the day after a power failure froze the main Toronto indices.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 4.79 points or 0.05% to 10,077.18. The Nasdaq lost 3.59 points or 0.19% to 1,925.17 and the S&P 500 fell 2.55 points or 0.23% at 1,121.84.

Toronto’s main indices were flat-lined after about 10:30 a.m. ET when the glitch occurred. At the time, the S&P/TSX was down 37.74 points or 0.43% to 8,777.15, while the TSX Venture exchange had fallen 14.92 points or 0.88% to 1,681.23.

By about 4:30 p.m. ET, the TSX Web site said the S&P/TSX composite index closed down 29.03 points or 0.33% to 8,785.86. The TSXV lost 20.28 or 1.2% at 1,675.87.