North American stocks are expected to fall significantly at the open, as investors take profits from Tuesday’s sharp rally.

Stocks soared Tuesday after the U.S. Federal Reserve said it would target a range for the fed funds rate of between 0% and 0.25%.

In today’s earnings news, Wall Street investment bank Morgan Stanley posted a fourth-quarter net loss of US$2.29 billion, or US$2.34 a share.

Rival Goldman Sachs Group on Tuesday, posted its first quarterly loss since its IPO nearly a decade ago.

Here at home, the provincial and territorial finance ministers meet in Saskatoon, Sask., as part of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s series of pre-budget consultations.

The Canadian dollar opened slightly lower at US82.90¢, down 0.31 of a cent from Tuesday’s close.

In other economic news, wholesale sales fell 1.8% to $45.3 billion in current dollars in October, following a 1.1% increase in September, Statistics Canada said Wednesday. Declines in the recycled metals industry and the automotive sector were the main contributors.

In commodities news, oil prices climbed above US$45 a barrel Wednesday as investors awaited official confirmation that OPEC had decided at its meeting in Algeria to cut output by two million barrels a day.

Light, sweet crude for January delivery was up US$1.66 to US$45.26 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In international markets, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.5%, while the UK’s FTSE 100 index was up 0.3%.

The Toronto Stock Exchange rallied more than 3% on Tuesday, surging after news from south of the border that the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to an historic low.

The S&P/TSX composite index rose 262.28 points, or 3.1%, to close at 8,724.11. Most of the gains accumulated late in the day, following the Fed’s move to cut the target fed funds rate for interbank lending from 1% to a range of zero to 0.25%.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture exchange moved higher by 6.65 points, or 0.9%, to end at 723.46.

American equities also showed strength following the Fed’s interest rate cut.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 359.61 points, or 4.2%, to end at 8,924.14.

The Nasdaq composite index rose 81.55 points, or 5.4%, to close at 1,589.89.

The S&P 500 index advanced 44.61 points, or 5.1%, to finish at 913.18.

IE