Stocks poised for positive open

LONDON (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks looked set to open higher Wednesday after stellar earnings from investment bank Morgan Stanley and in-line earnings from FedEx.

At 8:20 a.m. ET, futures were pointing to a higher opening for Wall Street.

Morgan Stanley (Charts, Fortune 500) reported better-than-expected second-quarter earnings that jumped 41 percent, despite woes in subprime mortgages - home loans given to borrowers with poor credit, which have hit rival Wall Street firms. The No. 2 investment bank said income from continuing operations rose to $2.58 billion, or $2.45 a share, while net revenue rose 32 percent to a record $11.5 billion from last year. Analysts expected the bank to post earnings of $2.01 a share on revenue of $10 billion.

The express delivery company FedEx (Charts, Fortune 500) reported a rise in net income, citing gains in its express, freight and ground delivery units and despite a slowing U.S. market. Net profit rose 7 percent to $610 million or $1.96 a share, compared with $568 million or $1.82 a share a year earlier. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected earnings of $1.95 a share.

U.S. stocks advanced slightly Tuesday as Treasury yields retreated from the 5-year high they hit last week.

Bond prices edged lower, taking the yield on the benchmark 10-year note up to 5.10 percent from 5.08 percent late Tuesday. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.

Overseas markets also were lifted by easing concerns about rising bond yields. European markets opened higher. Stocks in Asia gained, with Hong Kong's benchmark index scaling a fresh record during the trading session.

Oil prices slipped ahead of the government's weekly report on fuel inventories. U.S. light crude for July delivery fell 28 cents to $68.82 a barrel in electronic trading.

In major corporate news, two Bear Stearns (Charts, Fortune 500) hedge funds heavily invested in securities backed by subprime mortgages are close to being shut down, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500) has agreed to change its Vista operating system to make it easier for users to run desktop search programs. The move comes in response to a complaint filed by Google (Charts, Fortune 500).

Wal-Mart (Charts, Fortune 500) announced that it would expand its in-store "MoneyCenters", where customers can get access to low-cost services such as check cashing, money orders and money transfers, to about 1,000 locations next year.

Top executives at Toyota (Charts) plan to slow the automaker's U.S. factory expansion and the company is leaning towards a greater reliance on exports from Japan, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (Charts, Fortune 500) may swap its social networking site MySpace for a 25 percent stake in the No. 2 search engine Yahoo, a newspaper reported..