North American markets are looking to open higher Tuesday morning. In Canada, investors are waiting for the Bank of Canada’s decision on interest rates due later this morning.

The central bank is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged at 2.50%.

South of the border, reports on U.S. manufacturing and construction spending are also on deck.

The Institute for Supply Management is due to release the February purchasing manufacturing report at 10:00 ET. Economists look for the U.S. ISM manufacturing index to move up to 57.0 in February from 56.4.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Commerce Department is due to release the construction spending report for January, also at 10:00 ET.. Economists expect a 0.6% increase, slowing from a 1.1% rise in December.

In business news, North American. auto makers will issue sales reports for February throughout the day.

Petro-Canada is paying $300 million to acquire a 60% stake in UTS Energy’s Fort Hills oilsands project in Alberta’s Athabasca region and will become the mine operator.

In earnings news, Marsh & McLennan swung to a fourth-quarter loss less than a month after reaching an US$850 million settlement of civil-fraud charges with the New York state attorney general’s office.

Penn West Petroleum said its fourth-quarter earnings jumped to $69 million from $39 million a year earlier, as daily production rose six per cent amid higher fuel prices.

Western Oil Sands said its annual profit rose to $19.5 million, from a year-earlier $15 million, mainly because of a big foreign-exchange gain.

Bank of Nova Scotia will release its first quarter earnings later today.

Nortel will release its delayed 2004 annual results by the end of April, the company said late Monday.

On Monday, Toronto stocks closed lower as investors moved to lock in profits from the recent run up in energy shares. The S&P/TSX composite index fell 73.05 points, or 0.75%, to 9,668.32.

On the month, however, the TSX index pushed ahead 5% after a lackluster January.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index slipped 0.91 of a point to end at 1,995.85.

On Wall Street, U.S. stocks slid on Monday, weighed down by declines in biotechnology shares, oil prices above $51 a barrel and a brokerage downgrade on General Motors.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended down 75.37 points, or 0.70%, at 10,766.23. The S&P 500 Index was down 7.77 points, or 0.64%, at 1,203.60. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index was down 13.68 points, or 0.66%, at 2,051.72.

For the month, the Dow ended up 2.6%, the S&P 500 advanced 1.9% and the Nasdaq slipped 0.5%.