North American markets look set to open lower Wednesday after a weak sales outlook from tech bellwether Intel.

Intel said late Tuesday its third-quarter profit rose 4.7% on an 18% jump in revenue, but predicted sales in the current period would grow a bit less than Wall Street expected.

In economic news, U.S. housing construction staged a surprising rebound during September after back-to-back declines, and building permits climbed.

Housing starts increased 3.4% to a seasonally adjusted 2.108 million annual rate, the U.S. Commerce Department said Wednesday.

Economists had called for starts to decline 1.7% to a 1.975 million annual rate in September.

The report also showed permits for future building rose by 2.4% in September to a 2.189 million annual rate. Permits had been projected by economists to slip 3.7% to 2.058 million.

Here at home, wholesale sales rose 0.7% in August. Statistics Canada said the increase was spurred by strong demand from motor vehicle dealers keen to rebuild depleted inventories in the wake of this summer’s successful employee-pricing promotions.

The increase was the sixth in seven months. Excluding the automotive sector, sales declined 0.6%.

Later this afternoon, the U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to release its “beige book” on regional economic activity.

In this morning’s earnings news J.P. Morgan Chase said profit jumped 78% on stellar trading results, offsetting a decline in retail earnings. President Jamie Dimon will take over as CEO six months earlier than expected.

In other market news, Travis Engen, will retire as president and CEO of Alcan Inc. in March and be replaced by COO Richard Evans, the aluminum company said today.

Royal Bank will take a fourth-quarter pre-tax charge of US$500 million to account for the impact of Enron Corp. litigation, the bank said late Tuesday.

Crude-oil prices edged higher Wednesday, rising 9¢ to US$63.29 a barrel in early trading.

Overseas, the Nikkei 225 closed down 1.7% at 13129.49, while the U.K. FTSE 100 dipped 1.2% recently.

Toronto stocks were walloped Tuesday, hit hard by a falling energy sector and hawkish noises from the Bank of Canada, which raised the key overnight rate by 25 basis points.

The S&P/TSX composite index finished down 208.35, or 1.97%, to 10,345.09.

In announcing it was raising the overnight rate to 3%, the Bank of Canada said that the economy was now operating at full capacity and indicated it was concerned with inflationary pressures in the economy.

Most analysts expect the Bank to hike rates again in December.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index finished down 27.94 points, or 1.35%, to 2,035.21.

In New York, inflationary worries, fuelled by a rising producer price index, took the shine off a number of good earnings reports, including from IBM and 3M.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 62.84 points to 10,285.26. The Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 14.30 points at 2,056.00, while the S&P 500 Index was off 11.96 points at 1,178.14.