North American markets are expected to open flat despite benign data on consumer inflation and positive earnings news from IBM and Dell.

After markets closed Thursday, IBM’s earnings climbed 17% to beat expectations. The company issued a confident business outlook, in contrast with cautious forecasts by other tech firms.

Early this morning, Dell raised its second-quarter profit outlook, citing “robust” enterprise systems and services sales and market-share gains outside the U.S.

In economic news, U.S. consumer-price inflation moderated in June. The consumer-price index rose 0.3% last month, half the rate recorded in May, the Labor Department said today.

Moderating food and energy prices accounted for much of the slowdown. The closely watched core index, which excludes those items, was up a mere 0.1%, the smallest increase this year.

In a separate report, the Labor Department said the average weekly earnings of U.S. workers, adjusted for inflation, decreased by 0.8% in June as a 0.1% increase in average hourly earnings was more than offset by a 0.6% decline in average weekly hours and a 0.3% increase in the CPI for urban wage earners and clerical workers.

In Canada, Statistics Canada reported that consumers paid 2.5% more in June 2004 than they did in June 2003 for the goods and services included in the Consumer Price Index basket, the same as in May.

However, StatsCan said the 12-month increase in the All-items index excluding energy rose to 1.6% compared with 1.3% in May.

The agency said gasoline prices were by far the main contributor to the increase in the CPI. However, gasoline’s 12-month increase slowed down from 30.3% in May to 24.5% in June.

In other news, Martha Stewart is due in a New York court this morning for sentencing in her stock trading case. She faces 10 to 16 months in prison.

Stewart was convicted in March on one charge of conspiracy, one charge of obstruction of justice and two charges of making false statements to investigators.

Stewart’s former stock broker, Peter Bacanovic, will also be sentenced today at a separate hearing.

Overnight in Asia, Asian markets closed higher. Tokyo’s Nikkei rose 26.86 point to 11,436.

In Hong Kong, the key Hang Seng Index jumped 119.79 points, or 1%, to end at 12,059.2 in a two-hour session that was halted because of an approaching storm.

North American markets finished in the red Thursday, dragged down by concerns over oil prices, terrorism and weak U.S. industrial production.

In Toronto, the S&P/TSX composite index fell 60.97 points to 8,397.31. The TSX Venture composite index lost 4.40 points to finish at1,555.85.

In New York, stocks also sagged. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 45.64 points to 10,163.16. The S&P 500 Index dropped 4.78 points to 1,106.69. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index slipped 2.17 points to 1,912.71, hitting a fresh seven-week low.