U.S. stock markets appeared headed for a higher open Friday after yesterday’s steep losses.

Here at home, Canada’s unemployment rate dipped slightly in July to 6.1%, despite losing 55,000 jobs in the month, Statistics Canada today.

StatsCan said July’s job losses were offset by the number of Canadians who left the job market.

The Canadian dollar opened at US94.01¢ this morning, down 0.96 of a cent from Thursday’s close,.

Light, sweet crude fell $2.09 to $117.93 in premarket electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In today’s earnings news, Air Canada said net income fell to $122 million, or $1.22 per share, down from $155 million in the second quarter of 2007.

The airline blamed higher fuel prices for a big drop in operating income. Air Canada’s operating income fell to $7 million, down from $88 million in the second quarter of 2007.

Fannie Mae, one of the two main providers of funding for U.S. home mortgages, swung to a bigger-than-expected loss of US$2.3 billion for the second quarter and said it expects further heavy losses from home-mortgage defaults.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 0.33%.

In Europe, the UK’s FTSE 100 rose 0.12%, Germany’s DAX index advanced 0.39%, and France’s CAC-40 rose 0.46%.

Toronto stocks were caught in a late day selloff on Thursday sparked by worries over more fallout from the credit crunch.

The S&P/TSX composite index dropped 68.34 points, or 0.51%, to close at 13,385.17. Six of the 10 main TSX group finished lower.

The financials group fell 2.8% after U.S. insurer American International Group reported a big loss following more writedowns.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index slipped 18.27 points, or 0.85%, to 2,130.19.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average slid 224.64 points, or 1.93%, to close at 11,431.43.

The S&P 500 fell 23.11 points, or 1.79%, to 1,266.08, while the Nasdaq composite index dropped 22.64 points, or 0.95%, to 2,355.73. Today’s declines followed two days of gains on Wall Street.