5 Things You Should Know Before the Stock Market Opens

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- U.S. stock futures were rising Wednesday after stocks posted their fifth down day in a row during the previous trading session.

Shares in Europe were rising slightly, while Asian stocks were mostly lower Wednesday. Japan's Nikkei 225 fell for a seventh-straight day, down 0.8% to close at 9,458.74.

The economic calendar in the U.S. on Wednesday includes export and import prices for March at 8:30 a.m. EDT, and the release of the Fed's Beige Book on recent economic conditions at 2 p.m.

Economists polled by Reuters forecast a 0.8% rise in import prices and a 0.4% increase in export prices.

Alcoa(AA) , the aluminum giant, posted a surprise quarterly profit.

Alcoa, the first component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average to report its results each quarter, posted first-quarter earnings from continuing operations of $94 million, or 10 cents a share, on revenue of $6.01 billion. The average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters was for a loss of 4 cents a share on revenue of $5.77 billion.

The company attributed the better-than-expected results to "strong productivity improvements across all businesses, higher realized prices for aluminum, and improved volume and mix."

Alcoa also reaffirmed its outlook for 7% growth in global aluminum demand in 2012.

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands (LVS) , said Wednesday he plans to spend $35 billion on a mini-Las Vegas strip in Spain.

He is looking at the country's two top urban areas, Barcelona and Madrid, with plans for a casino complex, according to a report from Reuters.

"We are looking at 12 integrated resorts, 3,000 rooms each. A mini Las Vegas, about half the size of the Las Vegas strip in Spain for the European market," said Adelson, who was speaking at a press conference ahead of the opening of his new $4 billion casino property in Macau.

Yahoo!(YHOO) CEO Scott Thompson laid out his vision for the Internet company on Tuesday.