Small-cap stocks are expected to open near steady levels, with pressure from overnight profit-taking, sloppy action in mass retailer Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), and an analyst downgrade for brokerage companies offset by better-than-expected retail sales results.

S&P 500 futures trimmed overnight losses and actually moved into the green on the release of retail sales data, which came out at 8:30 a.m. ET. The retail sales report hit the headline number close to the consensus at a loss of 0.2%, but the ex-auto figure came in up 0.5%, which was above the forecast of 0.2% and sparked a minor bounce in after-hours futures trading. The business inventories report comes out at 10:00 a.m. ET, but that data series seldom sparks a big move in the markets.

In overnight trading, European shares were off about 0.5% ahead of the U.S. opening, pulled down by a rise in U.K. inflation data, and by write downs from a large French bank. However, stocks in Asia were mostly higher, with Japan’s Nikkei up 1.5% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng up 1.9%. Interestingly, China’s stock market was down only 1.3% despite the massive earthquake that generated some 12,000 casualties.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke about liquidity issues this morning, but the market appeared to have very little immediate reaction to his speech. Bernanke said that the Fed’s actions have helped, but that the markets are still “far from normal.” It might take some time for the market to digest Bernanke’s comments, but Forex, stocks and interest rates appeared much more reactive initially to . . .

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