North American stocks are expected to open Tuesday mixed as oil prices climbed past US$59 a barrel.

Crude-oil prices rose $1 to US$59.39 a barrel in early trading Tuesday. Forecasts that a winter storm will hit the northeastern U.S. during the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend lifted oil futures amid analysts’ predictions that prices would likely rise in coming weeks as demand for heating oil grows.

Here at home, consumer inflation rate fell in October, fuelled by tumbling gasoline prices, Statistics Canada reported this morning.

StatsCan said that the annual inflation rate dipped to 2.6% in October amid tumbling gasoline prices, down from 3.4% in September.

The core rate of inflation, which excludes the eight most volatile components, held at 1.7%, year-over-year. Economists had expected the core rate to rise to 1.8%.

Overseas, European markets were mixed, with the oil major-heavy FTSE 100 rising 0.3% recently, while French and German markets fell.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 ended 0.2% higher at 14,708.32.

The Canadian dollar opened at US84.47¢, down 0.03 of a cent after a rise of almost half a cent on Monday.

In other news, New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has dropped criminal charges brought last year against Paul Flynn, a former executive at CIBC who had been accused of aiding improper mutual-fund trading by hedge funds.

K.Y. Ho, the founder and chairman of ATI Technologies, announced his retirement from the company’s board of directors today, just over a month after insider trading charges against him were dismissed.

Toronto stocks were up Monday, propelled forward by surging resource stocks, amid news of massive job cuts at General Motors Corp.

The S&P/TSX composite index finished up 95.24, or 0.89%, to 10,817.34.

General Motors Corp. said it will cut 30,000 jobs – over 3,600 of them in Canada – and close nine North American plants by 2008. Shares of GM fell 47¢, or 1.95%, to $23.58 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index finished up 3.12, or 0.15%, 2,031.54.

In New York, markets closed higher despite rising oil prices and GM’s announcement of massive job cuts.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 53.95, or 0.5%, to 10,820.28, the index’s highest close since March, and putting the index in the black for the year.

The S&P 500 added 6.58, or 0.53%, to 1,254.85, and the Nasdaq composite index gained 14.60, or 0.66%, to 2,241.67. Both totals are four year highs.