North American stocks are pointing to a mixed open Tuesday after the U.S. embassy in Syria was attacked by several gunmen.

Syrian security forces killed three of the attackers, and no Americans were hurt.

Crude-oil prices advanced 19 cents to US$65.80 a barrel on the news.

In today’s economic news, the U.S. Commerce Department said the July U.S. trade balance widened by 5% to US$68.04 billion from US$64.82 billion in June. The July trade deficit was higher than Wall Street expectations of a deficit of US$65.50 billion.

Here at home, Statistics Canada said the merchandise trade surplus edged down for the second straight month in July as imports increased at a slightly faster pace than exports, particularly from the United States.

Statistics Canada reports that Canadian companies exported $38.5 billion worth of merchandise, up 2.1% from June, and they imported $34.6 billion worth, a 3.1% gain.

The Canadian dollar opened at US89.37¢, up 0.2 of a cent.

In earnings news, Goldman Sachs posted a quarterly profit of US$1.59 billion on revenue of US$7.5 billion.

Profit was flat as more challenging market conditions resulted in a pullback from record trading results from earlier in the year.

Texas Instruments narrowed its third-quarter earnings targets after Monday’s closing bell. The world’s largest provider of mobile phone chips forecast sales in the range of US$3.71 billion to US$3.87 billion, compared with its previous estimate of US$3.63 billion to US$3.95 billion.

European markets were mostly flat, with the UK’s FTSE 100 index adding 0.1%.

Japanese stocks fell for a second straight day, dragged down by data that showed consumer confidence worsened in August. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index lost 75.04 points, or 0.48%, to 15,719.34 points.

In Hong Kong, the blue-chip Hang Seng Index rose 126.81 points, or 0.8%, to 17,075.4 points.

Toronto stocks sank Monday, as deep drops in the resource sectors, fuelled by falling commodity prices, more than offset gains in the technology indexes.

The S&P/TSX composite index fell 213.02 points , or 1.79%, to 11,656.57.

Six of the 10 TSX main sub-groups were down, with the energy sector falling 3.95%.

The benchmark October contract for light, sweet crude fell 64¢ to close at US$65.61 a barrel.

EnCana Corp. lost $2.18, or 3.92%, to $53.39.

The materials sector lost 5.57%, while the gold sub-index divided 7.81%.

The December gold futures contract fell $20 to US$597.30 an ounce.

Glamis Gold lost $4.86, or 9.60%, to $45.75.

The information technology sector gained 1.64%, while the telecommunications services index gained 5.64%.

Nortel Networks gained 15¢, or 6.28%, to $2.54.

Telus Corp. gained $7.25, or 13.80%, to $59.80 as the firm announced its intention to turn itself into an income trust.

The Canadian dollar was down 0.1 of a cent to US89.17¢.

The S&P/TSX Venture Exchange index lost 113.39 points, or 4.17%, to 2,604.43

In New York, markets were marginally up as investors were cautiously optimistic about falling commodity prices.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 4.73 points to 11,396.84, the Nasdaq composite index moved up 7.46 points at 2,173.25, while S&P 500 ended essentially flat, gaining 0.62 of a point to close at 1,299.54.