U.S. stock-index futures fell Thursday as recession fears deepened amid another wave of blue-chip earnings releases.

In Canadian earnings news, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan posted net income of $1.24 billion in the third quarter. That’s five times as much as a year ago and exceeds the $1.1 billion it earned in all of 2007.

EnCana Corp. booked third-quarter net earnings of US$3.55 billion, up from $934 million a year ago.

Petro-Canada reported third-quarter operating earnings of $1.24 billion, up 97% from $630 million in the same period last year.
On Wall Street, Dow Chemical’s third-quarter net income rose 6.2%, beating analysts’ expectations, while Eli Lilly & Co. swung to a loss.

Credit Suisse Group swung to a third-quarter loss as its investment bank suffered heavily from the market turmoil that marked much of the period.

After the close, software giant Microsoft reports.

On Wednesday, online bookseller Amazon.com forecast weaker current-quarter sales than analysts had anticipated.

Here at home, the federal government announced it is creating a new program that will guarantee wholesale term borrowing by the country’s banks.

The Canadian Lenders Assurance Facility is aimed at encouraging banks keep lending to consumers and busineses.

The Canadian dollar opened at US78.80¢, losing another 0.90 of a cent after plunging yesterday to under US80¢for the first time since the summer of 2005.

There are no major economic releases from Statistics Canada today.

In commodities news, oil futures edged up 71¢ to US$67.46 a barrel on expectations OPEC will move to shore up plummeting prices with an output quota cut on Friday.

Gold continued its steep fall, down US$24.20 at US$711.00 an ounce on the Nymex.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average fell 2.5% overnight, and the gloom continued in European trading.

London’s FTSE 100 index is down 2.3%, the German DAX by 3.9% and the Paris CAC-40 by 3.2%.

Plunging commodity prices slammed energy and materials shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange Wednesday, sending the benchmark index down more than 550 points.

All 10 main groups on the TSX were down, pulling the S&P/TSX composite index down 558.92 points, or 5.71%, to close at 9,236.88.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture index plunged 68.76 points, or 7.09%, to close at 900.63.

Weakness in commodity prices hit stock markets in the United States with a similar selloff.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 514.45 points, or 5.7%, to end at 8,519.21. The S&P 500 index fell 58.27 points, or 6.1%, to 896.78 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 80.93 points, or 4.77% to finish the day at 1,615.75.