Before the bell: Awaiting the Fed, futures hold

It is official, O2 UK, part of Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica, and European mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse have clinched the Apple Inc's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone deal in Britain. The iPhone will be sold for 269 pounds ($536) from Nov. 9. The other European deals are expected to be with Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile in Germany and France Telecom's Orange in France. O2 signed a "multi-year" deal where customers will sign up for an 18-month contract on a tariff of either 35 pounds, 45 pounds or 55 pounds. Investors seem to like the deal as Telefonica shares were up almost 1%.

E*Trade Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: ETFC) are down 7.8% in premarket trading (7:45 a.m.). The discount broker said after the close last night that it planned to exit the wholesale-mortgage business. It also lowered its profit expectations by more than 25% for the year

Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) shares are up 5.1% in premarket trading (7:43 a.m.) after the software maker reported better-than-expected quarterly results after the close yesterday. Adobe's profit more than doubled on strong sales of recently upgraded products.

Companies reporting earnings today: Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) is expected to report earnings of 44 cents a share for the second quarter. Darden Restaurants Inc. (NYSE: DRI) is expected to report earnings of 70 cents a share for its fiscal first quarter. and Kroger (NYSE: KR) is expected to report earnings of 34 cents a share for its second quarter.

Credit market still hitting financial companies and yesterday we heard from Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) saying it expects a "meaningful impact" on third-quarter results at its corporate and investment bank, due to credit market volatility.

Dell Inc (NASDAQ: DELL) said yesterday it received notice from Nasdaq that it was not in compliance with the listing requirements as it is late in filing financial reports for its fiscal second quarter.

The Wall Street Journal writes how Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) are making new pushes into Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) turf as their recent web-based offerings (the recent Zimbra acquisition by Yahoo! and Google Apps) encroach on Microsoft's traditional business.