Wall St seen up; investors ignore UBS, eyes on Fed

LONDON, Dec 10 (Reuters) - U.S. index futures pointed to a slightly higher open on Wall Street on Monday as European markets shrugged off a big subprime writedown from UBS (UBSN.VX) and U.S. investors focused more on Tuesday's Fed rate meeting.

By 1044 GMT futures DJZ7 NDZ7 SPZ7 for the top three U.S. share indexes -- the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI, the Nasdaq .IXIC and the S&P 500 .SPX were up 0.2-0.3 percent.

The day is relatively light on both macroeconomic and corporate fronts, with only U.S. pending home data expected, and earnings from income tax preparation company H&R Block (HRB.N) and filtration system maker Pall Corp (PLL.N).

Shares in Swiss wealth manager UBS fell sharply but later recovered after it unveiled $10 billion in shock subprime writedowns but said it had obtained an emergency capital injection from the Singapore government and an unnamed Middle East investor.

Big banks worldwide have announced more than $60 billion in writedowns and losses from subprime mortgage loans, leveraged loan commitments and other assets since September.

Analysts said the capital injection at UBS countered the negative effect of the writedown, adding the market had already discounted big writedowns by banks anyway.

"Market participants fully expect more and more writedowns, and then you have the fact that two large investors have shown faith in UBS," said Steve Previs at Jeffries International.

With the UBS news quickly dismissed, and little else to preoccupy investors, focus shifted squarely on to the Federal Reserve's policy decision on Tuesday.