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But shares fell about 1.4 percent in after-hours trading, as the company failed to post the outsize profits investors have come to expect. Visa also has yet to address investor fears about how it will cope with looming U.S. regulation.

"It was a good quarter, not a great quarter, in terms of beating expectation and clearly there are more issues at stake," said Signal Hill analyst Mayank Tandon. "The market will be looking for some clarity of how they plan to mitigate the impact" of regulation.

The U.S. Dodd-Frank financial reform law will restrict the fees that merchants pay banks and networks for processing debit card transactions. Visa's shares fell over 12 percent in December, after the Federal Reserve proposed a 75 percent cut to debit card processing fees, and have not fully recovered since.

The world's largest credit and debit card processing network reported a profit of $1.23 per share for its fiscal first quarter, ended December 31.

That compared with a year-ago profit of $763 million or $1.02 per share.

Analysts on average had expected Visa to earn $1.21 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Visa shares closed up about 2 percent at $72.09 on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Maria Aspan; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

U.S. private employers added 187,000 jobs in January, more than forecast, according to a report from ADP Employer Services.

"This suggests that the jobs momentum is going the right way, and it makes me more optimistic for Friday's payroll report. But it isn't such a blow-out number to allow us to add to gains," said Michael Yoshikami, president and chief investment strategist at YCMNET Advisors in Walnut Creek, California.

S&P 500 futures dropped 2 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures were off 11 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 2.75 points.

Appliance maker Whirlpool Corp dropped 4.9 percent to $81.20 before the bell after its profit missed expectations.

Time Warner Inc rose 3.2 percent to $33.35 premarket after its profit topped estimates on a 21 percent jump in advertising sales at its cable networks.

Mattel Inc rose 1.4 percent to $24.49 premarket after its profit beat expectations on strong demand for its Barbie and American Girl dolls.

On Tuesday, the Dow and S&P 500 closed at their highest levels since June 2008 after strong earnings and signs of a surge in U.S. manufacturing. The Nasdaq surged almost 2 percent.

(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

The December figure was originally reported as a gain of 297,000 jobs.

The median of estimates from 29 economists surveyed by Reuters for the ADP Employer Services report, jointly developed with Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, was for a rise of 145,000 private-sector jobs in January.

The ADP figures come ahead of the U.S. government's much more comprehensive labor market report on Friday, which includes both public and private sector employment.

That report is expected to show a rise in overall nonfarm payrolls of 145,000 in January, based on a Reuters poll of analysts, but a rise in private payrolls of 155,000.

Economists often refer to the ADP report to fine-tune their expectations for the payrolls numbers, though it is not always accurate in predicting the outcome.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Padraic Cassidy)

Oil prices, however, continued to climb on worries that unrest in Egypt would trigger regime change across the Middle East and North Africa, driving North Sea Brent crude futures toward a 28-month high.

The dollar fell to three-month lows against a basket of major currencies as the three factors took the steam out of safe-haven buying in the greenback.

MSCI's all-country world stock index, one of the broadest gauges of global equities, was up 0.5 percent having hit levels last seen in August 2008.

Its developed market counterpart gained 0.5 percent to come close to a high last seen in early September 2008.

Emerging markets were up 0.8 percent on the day, but remain down more than 1 percent for the year, reflecting a recent shift by investors from emerging to developed markets.

Stock investors were cheered on Tuesday by strong factory data worldwide, which pushed U.S. benchmark stock indexes to their highest closing levels since June 2008.

Strong earnings from delivery firm UPS Inc and drugmaker Pfizer added to the mood.

"The world economy appears to be improving a little faster than expected, valuations are ok and companies are publishing quite good results," Geert Ruysschaert, strategist at BNP Paribas Fortis Private Banking, said. "So investors can take advantage of that."

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 was up 0.4 percent for a near 4 percent year-to-date gain. Earlier, Japan's benchmark Nikkei ended up 1.8 percent for its biggest daily gain since December 2.

Concerns about the political crisis in Egypt, meanwhile, were easing on financial markets after President Hosni Mubarak said he will step down at the end of his term in September, even though protestors continue to demand an immediate end to his 30-year rule.

Foreign investors have begun to show renewed interest in Egyptian bonds and stocks and the cost of insuring Egyptian debt against default fell.

DOLLAR AT LOWS

The dollar was at 12-week lows with expectations of loose U.S. monetary policy further encouraging risk-taking and as concerns over euro zone peripheral debt seemed to be contained.

"The dollar is weak due to the huge U.S. deficit, no yield and a very dovish central bank," said Ray Farris, currency strategist at Credit Suisse.

Panasonic, the world's fourth-largest TV maker after Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Sony Corp, is struggling to catch up in smartphones and tablets, a market dominated by Apple Inc and with Samsung emerging as a key rival.

Investors are eyeing Panasonic's ability to restructure quickly and show benefits after its deal with Sanyo Electric, which is aimed at sharpening the company's focus on environmental technologies like solar power systems and rechargeable batteries.

The company is expected to provide an update on integration plans later this year.

Panasonic reported an operating profit of 95.36 billion yen ($1.17 billion) for October-December, lagging the average forecast of 109.1 billion yen from a poll of six analysts by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The maker of Viera TVs and Lumix cameras left its full-year profit outlook at 310 billion yen, compared with a consensus of 328 billion yen in a poll of 20 analysts. Operating profit for the year to March 2010 was 190 billion yen.

Panasonic shares have fallen nearly 30 percent from a 14-month high of 1,585 yen reached in January last year, compared with a 5 percent fall in the Nikkei average.

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds; Editing by Michael Watson)