Futures for U.S. markets pointed upward late Tuesday after a strong earnings report from Apple (AAPL) - Get Report and as investors look forward to fresh news on the economy from the Federal Reserve Wednesday.

The S&P 500 added 0.05%, Nasdaq 0.25% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average 0.04% at 9:06 p.m. EST.

The continued uncertainty over President Trump's policies left Wall Street mixed Tuesday, but investors are still cheering the latest earnings season. The Fed will release a statement at 2:00 p.m. EST Wednesday and is expected to say it continues to see several interest rate increases this year but take no further action.

Tuesday the S&P slid 0.09% with a 0.54% decrease in the Dow. Nasdaq gained a scant 0.02%. European shares were negative after President Trump decried steep prices for pharmaceuticals, offsetting earlier euphoria over growing euro zone GDP. Germany's Dax slid 1.25%, the FTSE in London 0.27% and the CAC in Paris 0.75%.

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In early Wednesday trade, Asian markets were mixed with the Nikkei in Japan off just 0.01% while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong slipped 1.09% at 9:13 p.m. EST. The ASX in Australia added 0.36% while the KOSPI in South Korea gained 0.54%.

In oil, a barrel of industry standard Brent crude went for $55.46 at 9:18 p.m. EST, a decrease of 0.22%. Meanwhile a barrel of West Texas crude cost $52.71 two minutes later, a decline of 0.19%. The prices represent futures for delivery in April and March, respectively.

The dollar continues to suffer with the dollar index, which measures the currency against a number of rivals, gaining 0.12% at 9:24 p.m. to 99.67. below the 100 mark where it spent most of the month.

In after-hours trade, Apple shares gained 3.02% to $121.35 after the tech giant reported results for the first quarter of 2017 that beat Wall Street's expectations.

After the market close, Apple posted adjusted earnings of $3.36 per share, beating analyst projections of $3.22 per share. Revenue came in at $78.4 billion, above estimates of $77.3 billion.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company sold 78.3 million iPhones during the key holiday shopping quarter, while Wall Street had estimated it would sell 77 million iPhones. The number of iPhones sold was helped by the release of the iPhone 7, the latest model of Apple's flagship smartphone.