Market Preview: Let's Make a Deal

The economic calendar, however, is pretty packed with the Mortgage Bankers Association's weekly mortgage application activity index due at 7 a.m. ET; weekly initial and continuing jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. ET; the final University of Michigan consumer sentiment index for November at 9:55 a.m. ET; leading indicators for October at 10 a.m. ET; and weekly crude inventories data at 10:30 a.m. ET.

And finally, shares of Salesforce.com(CRM) were up slightly after the cloud computing company delivered a 35% year-over-year revenue increase in its latest quarter.

The San Francisco-based company reported non-GAAP earnings of $49.6 million, or 33 cents a share, for the third quarter on revenue of $788 million. The average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters was for a profit of 32 cents a share on revenue of $776.5 million in the October-ended period.

Salesforce.com also forecast non-GAAP earnings of 38 to 40 cents a share in its fiscal fourth quarter on revenue ranging from $825 million to $830 million. Wall Street's current consensus view is for a profit of 40 cents a share on revenue of $829.9 million in the quarter.

The stock was last quoted at $148.49, up 1.8%, on extended volume of nearly 500,000, according to Nasdaq.com.

The story at Scholastic(SCHL) isn't as favorable as the publishing company lowered its outlook after Tuesday's closing bell.

Citing lower curriculum product sales in its Educational Technology and Services business, delays in purchasing decisions because of uncertainty about the federal budget, and lower sales in its Book Club business, New York-based Scholastic now sees earnings from continuing operations of $1.40 to $1.60 a share for its fiscal year ending in May on revenue ranging from $1.8 billion to $1.9 billion.

The previous forecast was for earnings of $2.20 to $2.40 a share on revenue of $1.9 billion to $2 billion. The stock was called down nearly 19% after the bell but volume was very light.

--Written by Michael Baron in New York.

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