Wall Street futures pointed to a lower open for U.S. stocks Wednesday as investors await the outcome of a two-day U.S. Federal Reserve meeting.

Most market watchers expect the Fed to leave interest rates unchanged, but investors will looking for any signals that the Fed has changed its outlook for the U.S. economy.

In other economic news, U.S. consumer prices increased for a second-straight month raising the odds that the U.S. will avoid a protracted deflationary spiral of falling prices and spending.

The consumer price index rose 0.4% in February compared to January, the U.S. Labour Department said Wednesday, matching forecasts of Wall Street economists. The CPI rose 0.3% in January.

The core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, was up 0.2% for a second-straight time last month, slightly higher than expected.

Here at home, Wholesale sales declined 4.2% to $41.1 billion in current dollars in January, Statistics Canada said.

Lower activity in the automotive products sector was a major factor behind the decrease. Excluding the automotive products sector, wholesale sales fell 0.9%. In terms of the volume of sales, wholesale sales also fell 4.2%, the statistical agency reported.

The Canadian dollar opened at US78.76¢, down 0.05 of a cent from Tuesday’s close.

In today’s M&A news, the Wall Street Journal reported that International Business Machines is in talks to acquire Sun Microsystems. IBM is likely to pay at least US$6.5 billion in cash, or double Sun’s closing price Tuesday.

In commodities news, oil prices fell 38¢ to US$48.78 per barrel in premarket electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Overseas, Asian indexes posted modest gains as the Nikkei 225 rose 0.7%. The Bank of Japan said it will boost its purchases of government debt and that it was considering providing loans to banks.

In afternoon trading, the UK’s FTSE 100 fell 0.04%, Germany’s DAX index rose 1.1%, and France’s CAC-40 gained 0.5%.

Toronto stocks closed higher for a sixth straight session on Tuesday with energy shares driven higher by the rising price of oil.

The S&P/TSX composite index rallied 172.89 points, or 2.06%, to close at 8,559.60.

The heavyweight energy group rose 4% as the price of oil rose over US$2 a barrel.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index added 5.80 points, or 0.68%, to finish at 853.12.

In New York, U.S. stocks surged on optimism unexpected leap in housing starts. Government data showed housing starts rose 22.2% in February.

Bullish comments from Goldman Sachs on Cisco Systems helped technology shares rebound.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 178.73 points, or 2.48%, to 7,395.70. The S&P rose 24.23 points, or 3.21%, to 778.12. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index jumped 58.09 points, or 4.14%, to 1,462.11.

IE