North American stock markets are expected to open lower Wednesday following a sell-off in overseas markets, as General Motors swung to a profit.

International stock markets dropped sharply on Wednesday, with particular weakness seen in Asia, where the Nikkei 225 fell 2.9% in Tokyo and the Hang Seng fell 2.6% in Hong Kong.

The FTSE 100 in London declined 1.7% in late-morning trade.

Weakness in international markets followed Tuesday’s sell-off in North America. Stocks markets on both sides of the 49th parallel slumped heavily on Tuesday amid growing worries over the health of the U.S. housing sector.

In today’s earnings news, GM swung to a US$950 million profit in the fourth quarter, helped by continued cost-cutting measures and improvement in its core North American operations. Revenue in the latest quarter fell to US$51.2 billion from US$51.7 billion a year ago.

Lehman Brothers reported a 5.6% increase in quarterly profit amid record net revenue from the capital-markets and investment-management businesses.

In today’s economic news, Statistics Canada reported that Canadian industries reduced their use of production capacity for the fourth consecutive quarter between October and December in 2006 to the lowest level in more than three years.

At year-end, industries operated at 82.5% of their capacity, down from 83.4% in the third quarter. The increased demand both in Canada and abroad was largely met by inventory reductions, industrial production having decreased in the fourth quarter.

The fourth-quarter rate was 4.6 percentage points below the recent high of 87.1% reached in the second half of 2000, when the high technology sector was booming.

Separately, StatsCan said new motor vehicle sales declined 3.3% in January, following two strong monthly increases.

However, the 144,136 vehicles sold in January was the second highest sales level in the last 18 months, exceeded only by December 2006.

The Canadian dollar opened at 85.16¢, down 0.03 of a cent.

Crude-oil prices rose 2¢ to US$57.95 a barrel ahead of weekly inventory data and an OPEC meeting on Thursday.

On Tuesday, the S&P/TSX composite index lost 255.55 points, or 1.96%, to finish at 12,809.60, led by a 3.6% drop in the gold group, a 3.4% drop in the materials group, and declines of almost 3% in both the information technology and mining groups.

The financial services group was also down by 1.6%.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index fell 102.21 points, or 3.26%, to 3,032.87.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped more than 242 points, or 1.97%, to end at 12,075.96. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index shed 51.72 points, or 2.15% to end at 2,350.57.

The broader S&P 500 lost 28.65 points, or 2.04%, to finish at 1,377.95.

The Dow shuddered in the wake of a report that late mortgage payments in the U.S. hit a 3.5 year high in the fourth quarter of 2006, and new foreclosures hit a record high.