The outlook for North American stocks is remarkably weak Friday morning as General Motors Corp. saw its losses widen to US$15.5 billion in the second quarter because of plummeting sales in North America.

The loss is the third-worst quarterly loss in the automaker’s history. Although the company had warned earlier this month that it would post a significant loss in Q2, the numbers were far worse than what analysts had expected. GM’s revenue for the quarter ended June 30 was US$38.2 billion, down from US$8.5 billion a year earlier.

To top it off, the U.S. unemployment rate climbed to a four-year high of 5.7% in July as employers cut 51,000 jobs. The job losses mark the seventh straight month in which employers eliminated jobs. However, they weren’t anywhere near as deep as the about 75,000 job losses that economists were expecting for the month. The U.S. economy has lost a total of 463,000 jobs in 2008.

Here in Canada, Nortel Networks Corp. reported a second-quarter loss of US$113 million. Although the loss was more than triple of Nortel’s year-ago loss of US$37 million, revenue increased by 2% to US$2.62 billion. This growth also exceeded analysts’ expectations.

On Thursday, the energy-rich benchmark index of the Toronto Stock Exchange slumped, dragged down by the more than a US$2 drop in oil prices. The S&P/TSX composite index fell 90.30 points, or 0.66%, to close at 13,592.91.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index rose 39.87 points, or 1.83%, to 2,224.14 points.

The Canadian dollar slipped 0.11¢ from Wednesday’s close to end at US97.66¢.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 205.67 points, or 1.78%, to 11,378.02. The S&P 500 dropped 16.88 points, or 1.31%, to 1,267.38. The Nasdaq composite index slipped 4.17 points, or 0.18%, to 2,325.55.