North American market are expected to open lower Wednesday adding to Tuesday’s losses.

In economic news, U.S. consumer prices grew at a more moderate pace than expected in January as higher prices for food and medicine were offset by a decline in energy costs.

The U.S. Labor Department said its consumer-price index rose 0.1% last month after holding steady in December. The core index, which excludes typically volatile food and energy items, rose 0.2%, the same rate as in December. Economists had called for a 0.2% increase in both the overall and core indexes.

Here in at home, investors are looking ahead to a new Canadian federal budget, which will be unveiled this afternoon.

In today’s earnings news, two Canadian energy companies posted strong profits boosted by high energy prices.

EnCana Corp. reported a 500% increase in fourth-quarter earnings, to US$2.58 billion, after a US$1.4-billion gain from the recent sale of its U.K. North Sea oil and gas assets.

Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. posteda record fourth-quarter profit of $577 million, up from $250 million a year earlier and capping a record year.

On Tuesday, Toronto markets took a turn for the worse as financial and technology stocks offset gains in gold and energy shares, while Wall Street suffered its worse loss in seven months.

At close, the Toronto S&P/TSX composite index was down 41.84 points or 0.43% at 9,640.47 while the S&P/TSX Venture composite index managed to stay in the black, adding 1.78 points or 0.09% to 1,956.06. Volume on the TSX was heavy at 343 million shares.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 174.02 points or 1.61% at 10,611.20. That was its worst hit since Aug. 5, according to Bloomberg.

The tech-intensive Nasdaq lost 28.30 points or 1.37% at 2,030.32, while the S&P 500 index slid 17.42 points or 1.45% at 1,184.17.

The Canadian dollar was up more than a half-cent, 0.58¢, to US81.63¢ late in the day as the U.S. dollar fell sharply against other major currencies after a report that said South Korea plans to diversify its foreign exchange reserves unnerved markets.

In Toronto, strong gains by energy and gold shares gave way to losses by bank stocks and technology issues.

Gold stocks jumped 3.35% as gold spot prices added $7.40 to US$434.50 in New York. Energy stocks were up 1.27% as oil prices jumped to their highest level in more than three months. After climbing as high as US$51.40, light sweet crude for March delivery settled at US$51.15 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, an increase of US$2.80.

But technology stocks were down 2% and financials slid 0.96% to pull the TSX down. Among the latter group, shares of Bank of Montreal shares lost 69¢ or 1.22% to $56.01 even as it reported quarterly earnings of $602 million, up 15% from a year ago.

In New York, the combination of rising oil prices, and dollar woes hit U.S. markets hard.

Five stocks were down for every one that was up on the New York Stock Exchange. Some 1.7 billion shares changed hands on the Big Board, making it the busiest trading day this year.