North American stocks look set to open lower Thursday amid concerns about weakness in the U.S. housing market.

U.S. home builder KB Home lowered its earnings forecast for the fiscal year, citing declining orders because of higher cancellation rates and weaker-than-expected demand for new homes in a slowing real-estate market.

Meanwhile, single-family home builder Hovnanian Enterprises reported a 34% decline in its fiscal third-quarter profit as the company struggled with higher costs, slower-paced orders and increased cancellations.

On the economic front, the U.S. Labor Department said today that initial jobless claims decreased 9,000 to 310,000 in the week ended Sept. 2. Economists expected jobless claims to fall by 1,000. But the number of people collecting unemployment benefits for more than a week rose to a six-month high.

A report is due at 10:00 ET on July wholesale inventories in the U.S.

Here at home, Statistics Canada said the value of building permits issued by municipalities declined in July, as construction intentions for industrial buildings lost ground from June’s very high level, Statistics Canada said today. Builders took out $5.3 billion worth of permits, down 2.3% from June.

The Canadian dollar opened at US90.51¢, up 0.09 of a cent.

In today’s earnings news, Transat A.T. Inc. said its third-quarter profit jumped to $4.2 million from a year-earlier $794,000, thanks to increased revenue and passenger growth.

MDS Inc. reported higher net profits and revenues for the third quarter Thursday, amid reports the restructuring life sciences company is set to sell its diagnostics division to a unit of the OMERS pension fund for more than $900 million.

Crude-oil futures climbed 13¢ to US$67.63 a barrel, a day after falling to a five-month low, while the market waited for the latest weekly data on U.S. supplies.

Overseas, European stock markets declined, hurt by a profit warning from engineering company Tomkins.

Asian-Pacific markets closed lower as Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 1.7%.
The benchmark index fell 271.68 points to 16,012.41 points.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index fell 162.07 points, or 0.9%, to 17,096.44.

Toronto stocks fell Wednesday, as a falling energy sector led all indices lower. The S&P/TSX composite index lost 198.89, or 1.63%, to finish at 11,999.74.

Nine of the 10 TSX main sub-groups were down, with just utilities, regarded as a defensive sector, registering a modest 0.07% gain.

The S&P/TSX Venture Exchange index lost 14.79, or 0.53%, to 2,798.80.

In New York, markets were lower as investors registered concern about the domestic economy’s prospects.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 63.08 points to 11,406.20, the Nasdaq composite index was down 37.86 points to end at 2,167.84, and the S&P 500 index dropped 12.99 points to 1,300.26.