FED Meeting today

Stock futures pointed toward a modestly-higher open Wednesday ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy decision later today, which most expect will contain an announcement of the Fed's quantitative easing strategy.

As of 8:20 a.m. in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 14 points, or 0.13%, to 11166.00, the S&P 500 futures were up 1.1 points to 1193.80 and the Nasdaq 100 futures rose 1.25 points 2151.50.

As it has been long predicted, the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in yesterday's mid-term elections and Rep. John Boehner will likely become the next Speaker of the House. The only surprise may have been the re-election of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, which polling showed the race could have gone for Reid or Republican challenger Sharron Angle.

And in today's Fed meeting, economists and the broader market have long forecasted that the central bank will announce some sort of quantitative easing strategy in its meeting immediately following the mid-term elections. A decision by the Fed is expected shortly after 2 p.m. ET. 

Wall Street will get a whole host of economic data before and after the market open today which will weigh on the markets as well.

ADP Macroeconomic Advisers said Wednesday that the private sector hired 43,000 workers in the month of October, nearly double what economists had been looking for.  The ADP report is used to forecast Friday's closely-watched government jobs report, which is expected to show the U.S. economy created 60,000 non-farm jobs and the unemployment rate remained at 9.6%.

Also out this morning is the ISM Services index and the Commerce Department's report on factory orders both at 10 a.m. ET.

The major auto makers will also report their October sales data starting at around 12 p.m. ET. 

In commodities, oil was up 1% to $84.71 a barrel and gold was up 0.12% to $1,358.50 a troy ounce.

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