North American stocks are poised to open lower Tuesday after soft outlook from Texas Instruments amid of flood of corporate earnings reports.

After markets closed Monday, chip maker Texas Instruments reported a sharp drop in second-quarter profit and gave a disappointing revenue forecast for the current quarter.

As well, Canadian National Railway reduced its earnings guidance for the year as the railway continues to face market and operational challenges from the first half of the year. The Montreal-based railway halved its 2007 earnings guidance growth to five%, from an earlier forecast of 10%-plus.

CN’s second-quarter net income decreased by 29% to $516 million from $729 million in the same period in 2006.

In today’s earnings news, AT&T reported a 61% rise in quarterly profit amid recent acquisitions and said it activated 146,000 iPhone subscribers in the last two days of the quarter, 40% of whom were new AT&T Wireless customers.

Canadian Pacific Railway reported a 9% rise in second-quarter operating profit on improved efficiency, but net income declined from year-ago levels that were boosted by a non-recurring tax item.

BP reported a surprise 1.5% profit rise, while Nissan Motor’s profit dropped 16%, and BHP Billiton reported record output for many of its metals.

Results from DuPont, Biogen Idec as well as Amazon.com are due later today.

On the economic front, a report is due on the Richmond Federal Reserve’s manufacturing index for July, which typically isn’t a huge driver of market moves.

Here at home, Statistics Canada reported that retail sales surged 2.8% in May.

The Canadian dollar opened at US95.63¢, up 0.12 of a cent.

Crude-oil futures fell 92¢ to US$73.91 a barrel, continuing to weaken since comments from OPEC officials suggesting that prices are too high.

Overseas, the Nikkei 225 closed with a rise of 0.2% in Tokyo. The FTSE 100 slipped 0.8% in late morning trading.

On Monday, Toronto stocks were pulled lower by troubles at Cameco and falling oil prices.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 114.54 points, or 0.8%, at 14,468.33.

Uranium producer Cameco was the index’s biggest weighted loser as it said it would suspend production at a nuclear fuel conversion plant in Port Hope, Ontario.

Cameco shares sank $3.19, or 6.5%, to $46.13.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index moved 3.1 points lower to 3,322.76.

In New York, blue chip stocks rose on Monday on takeover news and strong earnings.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 92.34 points, or 0.67%, at 13,943.42.

The S&P 500 was up 7.47 points, or 0.49%, at 1,541.57. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index gained 2.98 points, or 0.11%, at 2,690.58.