North American markets may open higher Wednesday as U.S. retail sales declined in July for the first time in five months, but the dip was smaller than expected.

Retail sales decreased by 0.1%, the U.S. Commerce Department said today. Economists had estimated a 0.4% drop.

Here at home, the Canadian dollar opened at US93.48¢, down 0.61 of a cent from Tuesday’s close.

There are no major economic releases from Statistics Canada today.

Meanwhile, light, sweet crude rose 23¢ to US$113.34 a barrel in premarket electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In today’s earnings news, restructuring charges trimmed third-quarter profit at Gildan Activewear Inc.

The company’s net income was US$54 million, or 44¢ per diluted share for the third quarter of its fiscal 2008. That included 2¢ per share of restructuring charges.

ATS Automation Tooling Systems Inc. said its profitability improved dramatically. Net income from continuing operations was $15 million, or 19¢ a share. That’s an improvement on the year-earlier loss of $7.1 million, or 12¢ a share.

In M&A news, Nortel Networks said it has acquired Pingtel software business from Bluesocket Inc. Pingtel will add to Nortel’s enterprise unified communications portfolio. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average fell 2.11%. In morning trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.59%, Germany’s DAX index lost 0.58%, and France’s CAC-40 fell 0.81%.

Worries over more losses related to the credit crunch sent financial shares lower on Tuesday, offsetting a rebound by gold producers on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 36.19 points, or 0.27%, at 13,167.00. It was the fourth session in a row the benchmark index has closed lower.

The TSX financials group lost 1.1%, after U.S. investment bank J.P. Morgan Chase said it has accumulated US$1.5 billion of losses so far this quarter on mortgage-related assets.

The gold subindex gained 2.6% even as gold prices fell as the sector rebounded from a recent selloff.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index fell 38.83 points, 1.93%, to 1,976.52, closing below the 2,000 mark for the first time since mid-November 2005.

In New York, U.S. stocks fell as bank shares tumbled on fresh worries about the economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 139.88 points, or 1.19%, to 11,642.47. The S&P 500 dropped 15.73 points, or 1.21%, to 1,289.59, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index dropped 9.34 points, or 0.38%, to 2,430.61.