North American stocks are expected to rise at the open Wednesday, buoyed by Home Depot’s planned stock buyback and Morgan Stanley’s strong earnings.

Home Depot announced a big increase of up to US$22.5 billion to its stock-repurchase plan. The news came on the heels of a deal for the home-improvement retailer to sell its construction-supply business for US$10.3 billion to a trio of investors.

In today’s earnings news, Morgan Stanley’s fiscal second-quarter net income surged 40% as results beat expectations amid big earnings increases at its securities and global wealth management operations. Revenue jumped 32% to US$11.52 billion.

FedEx posted a 7.4% rise in fiscal fourth-quarter profit, helped by a gain from a settlement with plane maker Airbus.

In today’s economic news, Statistics Canada reported that wholesalers posted sharply lower sales in April, as declines in a number of major sectors erased all of the strong gains made over the previous two months.

Overall sales fell by 3.1% in April to an estimated $42.8 billion. April’s drop was the largest since August 2003 and followed increases of 2.3% and 0.9% in March and February respectively.

Separately, StatsCan said Canada’s net external liabilities continued their long-term decline during the first three months of 2007 as international assets rose at a faster pace than external liabilities.

As well, the government agency reported that the growth of the composite leading index was steady at 0.5% in May. In total, 8 of the 10 components rose, the same as in April, StatsCan said.

The Canadian dollar opened at US93.82¢, down 0.24 of a cent.

Crude-oil futures fell 33¢ at US$68.77 a barrel ahead of weekly energy inventory data.

Overseas, the Nikkei 225 rose 0.3% in Tokyo and the FTSE 100 rose 0.4% in London.

Toronto stocks ended lower Tuesday as investors moved to lock in profits after a four-day winning streak.

The S&P/TSX composite index was down 56.93 points, or 0.4%, at 14,119.49.

The drop followed a gain of more than 450 points in the past four sessions.

Overall, eight of the 10 TSX main groups were lower, with the financial and energy groups down 0.6% and 0.3% respectively.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index rose 10.90 points, or 0.34%, to 3,237.08.

On Wall Street, U.S. stocks edged higher as a dip in Treasury bond yields tempered investors’ interest-rate worries and boosted financial stocks.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 22.44 points, or 0.16%, at 13,635.42. The S&P 500 was up 2.65 points, or 0.17%, at 1,533.70. The Nasdaq composite index was up 0.16 points, or 0.01%, at 2,626.76.