At The Motley Fool, we know our readers like to be informed. Here's a quick look at today's most relevant financial news, boiled down to what you need to know.

Home Depot beats analyst estimates
Profits increased 12% for Home Depot (NYSE: HD), with third-quarter earnings coming in at $934 million or $0.60 per share, a penny above Wall Street's expectations. The home improvement retailer raised its quarterly dividend 16% to $0.29 a share. Home Depot's sales at stores open at least a year were up 4.2%, putting the company ahead of rival Lowe's (NYSE: LOW) for the 10th consecutive quarter. The stock opened up almost 1% on the news. Read more on this at Bloomberg.

Shares of Wal-Mart down after earnings miss
Third quarter earnings declined 2.9% for Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), despite net sales increasing 8.2% to $109.5 billion. The world's largest retailer reported a profit of $3.34 billion, or $0.97 per share, which missed Wall Street's forecast of $0.98 a share. The stock opened down about 1.5%. Read more on this at Reuters. 

Staples sales fall on weak demand in Europe
Revenue came in short for office supply company Staples (Nasdaq: SPLS), whose stock plunged more than 5% at the open this morning. The company's third-quarter sales were hurt by a 12% decline in same-store sales in Europe and Australia. Sales outside of the U.S. fell 1.9% to $1.3 billion. Rivals Office Depot (NYSE: ODP) and OfficeMax (NYSE: OMX) also missed revenue expectations for the quarter. Read more on this at Yahoo!.  

That's a wrap
So there you have it -- the top financial stories for this morning. If you are interested in getting all the news and commentary on these stocks, sign up to My Watchlist here --it's free!