U.S. stock futures are slightly higher Wednesday morning after Tuesday's rally. Oil futures dropped to $104.82 a barrel. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 27 points to 12,226.00 and futures on the S&P 500 stock index gained 2.40 points to 1,322.50. Nasdaq 100 futures rose 1 point to 2,334.75.

U.S. stocks closed higher, with the blue-chip Dow index surging 1.03% to close at $12,214.38 on Tuesday.

Data on wholesale inventories for January will be released at 10 a.m. ET.

Shares of Nokia (NOK) gained about 1.3% in pre-market trading after analysts at Bernstein upgraded the mobile-phone giant from underperform to market perform late Tuesday.

Diamond Foods (DMND) reported its Q2 earnings at $19.7 million, or 87 cents per share, up from $8.8 million, or 52 cents per share in the year-ago quarter. Excluding one-time items, Diamond's earnings came in at 91 cents per share. The company's revenue increased 40% to $257.6 million. However, analysts had been expecting adjusted earnings of 89 cents per share on revenue of $265.1 million. Diamond lifted its full-year earnings guidance to $2.45 to $2.51 per share, excluding on-time items, from $2.43 to $2.49 per share. However, analysts were projecting full-year earnings of $2.51 per share.

Navistar International (NAV) reported its Q1 EPS, ex-items, at 16 cents, versus the consensus of 23 cents. NAV reported its Q1 revenue at $2.74 billion, versus the consensus of $2.9 billion.

Consolidation in the food industry has only left a few of the specialty companies trading on the major exchanges. One such outfit is headquartered in Stockton, California.

Diamond Foods (NASDAQ: DMND) processes, markets and distributes culinary nuts and snack products under the Diamond, Emerald and Harmony brands. The firm's walnuts, almonds, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts, pecans, pine nuts and Spanish peanuts are sold for snacking and for use in home cooking and restaurant recipes. Mass merchandise customers include Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), Safeway (NYSE: SWY) and Kroger (NYSE: KR). The firm does business in North America, Europe and Asia.

The company pleased investors earlier in the week, when it reported Q3 top and bottom line results that handily topped Street estimates and guided FY07 expectations to levels in-line with analyst ranges. DMND shares popped into the initial stages of a bullish "flag" consolidation pattern on the news. Prices frequently exit flags moving in the same direction they were traveling when they entered them. In this case, that would be to the upside.

Brokers recommend the issue with one "strong buy" and four "holds." Analysts expect a 43% growth rate, through the next year. The DMND Price to Sales ratio (0.57), Price to Book ratio (2.25), Price to Cash Flow ratio (14.95), Price to Free Cash Flow ratio (30.37), Sales Growth rate (43.09%) and EPS Growth rate (-0.20 to -0.09 yr/yr) compare favorably with industry, sector and S&P 500 averages. Institutional investors hold about 54% of the outstanding shares. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock has traded between $13.15 and $19.93. A stop-loss of $15.10 looks good here.

Larry Schutts is a contributing editor for Theflyonthewall.com and the Vice-President of Stockwinners.com.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Today's notable initiations include NetFlix (NFLX) and Diamond Foods (DMND):

• Bank of America started NetFlix Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) with a Sell rating and $24 target, as they expect increasing subscriber acquisition costs and decreasing average revenue per subscriber to be challenging for the long-term;
• Diamond Foods Inc. (NASDAQ:DMND) was initiated with a Buy rating and $23 target at Oppenheimer, as the firm believes Diamond Foods has a solid core business and sees healthy growth with the Emerald products division.

OTHER INITIATIONS:

• JB Hunt Transort Services Inc. (NASDAQ:JBHT) was initiated with a Hold rating at McDonald.
• Duke Energy Corp. Holding Co. (NYSE:DUK) was initiated with a Hold rating and $35 target at Deutsche Bank, citing valuation.
• JP Morgan initiated shares of International Coal Group Inc. (NYSE:ICO) with an Underweight rating, citing difficult business conditions for Central Appalachian coal miners.
• Rochdale initiated Cypress Semiconductor Inc. (NYSE:CY) with a Buy rating and $21 target; the firm believes new business, operating efficiencies and the SunPower (SPWR) investment will improve profitability in 2007.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).