U.S. light crude lost 64 cents to $53.12 a barrel, down from a six-week high of $55.55 last Thursday. London Brent crude was 68 cents down at $52.45 a barrel, more than $2 down from its recent six-week high.

Dow Jones futures were higher by 33 points, Nasdaq futures were ahead 5 points and S&P futures advanced 3.1 points.

After the bell Tuesday, Texas Instruments boosted its second-quarter profit and revenue outlook on improving demand for the company's chips and calculators. The company sees a profit of between 27 cents and 30 cents a share on revenue of between $3.12 billion and $3.24 billion for the quarter. Earlier Texas Instruments had forecast a profit of between 25 cents and 29 cents a share on revenue of $3 billion to $3.24 billion.

Major markets in Asia finished higher Wednesday, but major European markets were lower in early trading.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 Stock Average added 0.6% to 11281.03, as Texas Instruments' stronger earnings outlook bolstered shares of Japanese semiconductor companies.

In London, the benchmark FTSE 100 recently traded down 0.3% to 5,010.2, as shares of mining, telecom, oil and pharmaceutical companies declined.

The U.S. dollar was mixed Wednesday morning versus major currencies in European trading. The euro was quoted at $1.2272, down vs. $1.2292 late Tuesday. A dollar bought 106.85 Japanese yen, up from 106.54 late Tuesday.

Gold traded unchanged in London at $424.90 bid per troy ounce.

Comtech Telecommunications Corp. (CMTL: chart) is scheduled to report 3Q earnings and analysts forecast earnings per share of 24 cents.

Korn/Ferry International (KFY: chart) is expected to post 4Q earnings of 25 cents a share.

H&R Block HRB is also to report Wednesday.

InterActiveCorp. (IACI: chart) said that it has agreed to sell its 5.44% interest in Vivendi Universal Entertainment to NBC Universal, which 80%-owned by GE (GE: chart) and 20%-owned by Vivendi Universal (V: chart). The company said the total consideration of the deal was about $3.4 billion, consisting of 56.6 million common and Class B common shares, with a market value of $1.4 billion, and cash.

Northrop Grumman (NOC: chart) and the parent company of Europe's Airbus have agreed to join forces to break Boeing's (BA: chart) monopoly on supplying aerial-refueling planes to the Pentagon.

Third Avenue Management proposed buying Instinet Group's (INGP: chart) institutional-brokerage unit for $307 million, a move that could delay Nasdaq's plan to buy Instinet's electronic-trading business.

Economists forecast a 0.4% growth of wholesale inventories in April, flat with the increase reported March. The Commerce Department is expected to release the wholesale trade numbers for April at 10:00 a.m.

Weekly U.S. oil data due at 10:30 a.m. is forecasted to show a slight rise in commercial crude inventories.