North American markets are likely to open lower Tuesday following yesterday’s broad-based advance.

In economic news, the U.S. Commerce Department is slated to release the new-home sales report for March at 10:00 ET. Economist expect a 2.8% decline to an annual rate of 1.192 million.

Also this morning, the U.S. Conference Board is due to release its consumer confidence report, with economists looking for a further decline to 98.0 in April from 102.4 in March.

There are no major economic releases from Statistics Canada today.

In this morning’s earnings news, Thomson Corp. said net earnings nearly doubled to US$73 million on a strong performance across its divisions.

Noranda Inc., which is poised to merge with Falconbridge Ltd., said its profit jumped 16% to US$176 million on high metals prices and positive production from its mines.

Petro-Canada Inc., however, reported a sharp decline net profits in the first quarter after an after-tax $313 million loss on a recent acquisition. The oil and natural gas giant said it earned $118 million, down from $513 million a year ago.

North American markets posted broad-based gains Monday as crude oil prices slipped and technology issues advanced.



In Toronto, the S&P/TSX composite Index closed ahead 48.64 points, or 0.52%, at 9,416.13.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index slid 8.21 points, or 0.47%, to close at 1,743.26.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 84.76 points, or 0.83%, to end at 10,242.47.

The Dow got a further lift after the release of new data showing the sales of existing U.S. homes rose in March to near-record levels. The median selling price of a U.S. home is up 11.4% since March of last year.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 18.60 points, or 0.96%, to 1,950.80. The S&P/ 500 added 9.98 points, or 0.87%, to end at 1,162.10.