Wall Street set to open flat after Tuesday's rally; Disney weighs

By Tanya Agrawal

REUTERS - Wall Street was set to open little changed on Wednesday, a day after S&P 500 enjoyed its best day in two months and as Dow component Walt Disney reported a rare earnings miss.

Disney shares were down 5.5 percent at $100.71 in premarket trading after the company's result missed expectations as advertising and subscriptions declined at ESPN.

On Tuesday, the S&P 500 and Dow Jones notched their biggest daily percentage gain since March 11 and the Nasdaq its biggest since April 13, helped by a jump in oil and a rally in Amazon.

"We are looking at a slightly lower opening today as we see a little bit of profit taking from yesterday's rally while Disney's earnings miss is certainly a factor," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial in New York.

Dow e-minis were down 30 points, or 0.17 percent, with 26,997 contracts changing hands at 8:30 a.m. ET (1230 GMT).

Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 2 points, or 0.05 percent, on volume of 22,186 contracts.

S&P 500 e-minis were down 1.75 points, or 0.08 percent, with 173,668 contracts traded.

Tuesday's gains appeared to breathe new life into a two-month rally that had petered out in mid-April and left the S&P 500 with an increase of just about 2 percent for 2016.

Still, traders are struggling to find new catalysts to propel the market back towards record highs due to underwhelming first-quarter earnings and mixed economic data that provided little clarity on the path of Federal Reserve's rate-hike path.

First-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies have mostly beaten analysts' expectations, but are still estimated to have fallen 5.4 percent from a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data.

"I think we're going to continue to mull around till we get signs of solid economic activity," said Cardillo.

Oil prices were higher as worries about supply disruptions resurfaced after Shell announced the closure of a key Nigerian pipeline. [O/R]

Fossil slumped 31.6 percent to $27.37 and were set to open at a six-and-a-half year low after the watch retailer cut its 2016 forecast.

Office Depot fell 34.3 percent to $3.99 after terminating its planned merger with Staples. Staples was down 15.2 percent at $8.79.

Macy's fell 6.7 percent to $34.50 after the department store operator's sales fell for the fifth straight quarter.

Electronic Arts was up 8.9 percent at $70.26 after the video-game publisher reported strong quarterly results.

(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal; Editing by Savio D'Souza)