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.

One stock off to the races this year is truck and bus maker Navistar International (NYSE: NAV). Its shares were up 44% after the first three days of trading this year, including trading higher on days the market was lower. And the stock is up 62% since the day before Christmas.

What's behind the move?

Monday morning the company said it expected earnings for fiscal 2009 to range between $5.10 and $5.60 per share, which is significantly below the $6.08 the Street was expecting (though the company's forecast includes up to $3 per share in pension costs).

Perhaps someone figured out that with the stock in the low $20s and earnings slated to be above $5 per share, the P/E ratio was pretty low and the stock at that low level was too enticing to pass up.

More likely, though, the move can be attributed to comments from CEO Daniel Ustian, who said that he believed that 2010, rather than being a trough year, will be a lot higher than 2009. The company said it sees a (very) slight gain in sales volume in the United States and Canada this year of its school buses and heavy-duty trucks to 244,000 to 256,000 from 244,100 in fiscal 2008.