Stocks are expected to be negative this morning as investors digest a mixed bag of economic data. U.S. jobless claims and import prices both showed signs of weakness though they beat economists’ expectations, while the American trade deficit grew more than expected. Shortly after the economic reports, Wall Street futures dropped.

The U.S. Labour Department is reporting that first-time claims for unemployment insurance rose by 13,000 to 366,000 last week, after falling 38,000 a week earlier, the Labor Department reported early Thursday. Economists had forecast an increase of 17,000.

Labour is also reporting that prices paid for items imported to the U.S. rose by 0.1% in October, after falling 0.4% in September. Meanwhile, the Commerce Department reported that the U.S. trade deficit widened to $41.27 billion in September from $39.52 billion in August, as imports climbed to a record level.

In Canada, the news is a little better. Statistics Canada reported that merchandise trade rebounded in September, recovering most of the decline experienced in August, because of the power blackout in Ontario. Canadian companies exported $33.7 billion in merchandise in September, up 4.7%. At the same time, imports rose 4.5% to just over $28.0 billion.

As a result, Canada’s trade surplus with the rest of the world increased for the third consecutive month, surpassing $5.6 billion. During the past three months, the trade balance has increased by more than $1 billion.

StatsCan is also reporting that, the number of new motor vehicles sold declined in September for a second consecutive month. However, while sales were down 1.9% from August, this was the second smallest monthly change since the beginning of the year. In all, dealers sold 140,539 vehicles in September. This represented a decline of 2,733 units from August and was mainly attributable to passenger cars.

In a third report, StasCan reported that the composite price index for non-residential building construction in the third quarter was 119.2, up 0.6% from the second quarter and 3.3% from the third quarter of 2002.

In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 Average rose more than 1%, while the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong jumped over 2%.

At midday in Europe, London’s FTSE-100 Share Index is up 0.6% to 4395.40, while in Paris the CAC-40 Index has risen 0.7%, to 3435.13. Frankfurt’s Xetra Dax Index is up 37.99, or 1.01%, to 3786.33.