North American stock futures are pointing to a higher open Tuesday after a long weekend, with earnings from Wal-Mart and Canada’s inflation report in focus.

Early today, Wal-Mart posted a 4% rise in fiscal fourth-quarter net income, helped by strong international revenue, but the retail giant noted cautious consumer spending and said it expects earnings in the current quarter to come in below analysts’ expectations.

In other earnings news, Hewlett-Packard will report earnings after the closing bell.

Here at home, Canada’s annual inflation rate dropped to 2.2% in January, down from 2.4% in December, Statistics Canada reported today.

It was the slowest pace since August 2007.

The core inflation rate, which excludes the most volatile items in the consumer price index, slipped by a 10th of a percentage point to 1.4% last month, StatsCan said. That is the lowest core reading since July 2005.

Separately, the government agency reported that Canadian wholesalers saw a sharp decline in sales in December, erasing all of the gains made over the previous months.

Sales fell 2.9% in December to $42.7 billion, ending a string of three consecutive monthly increases. The decline was the largest since April and brought monthly sales to their lowest level since November 2006, StatsCan said.

Despite the drop in December, preliminary figures indicate that wholesalers put in another solid performance in 2007.

The Canadian dollar opened at US99.55¢ this morning, up three-tenths of a cent from Monday’s close.

In company news, iunsolvent printing company Quebecor World Inc. wants a Quebec court to extend protection from creditors until May 11 while it stabilizes the business and develops a
restructuring plan.

The global financial sector will be back in the spotlight Tuesday after Credit Suisse cut the value of some asset-backed securities by $US2.85 billion, blaming some of the hit on “mismarkings and pricing errors” by traders.

Also, investors will have time to digest the British government’s decision Monday to nationalize struggling mortgage-lender Northern Rock.

Meanwhile, the chief executive of the largest bond insurer in the United States, MBIA, stepped down and is being replaced by a predecessor in the post. Joseph Brown is returning to oversee the troubled bond insurer, nine months after resigning as chairman.

Crude-oil futures rose over $2 a barrel, up $2.09 to $97.50.

Overseas, investors have plenty of overseas news to digest. Chinese inflation jumped to an 11-year high, Cuban President Fidel Castro announced he’s stepping down after 49 years in power and Toshiba scrapped HD-DVD technology.

Japan’s Nikkei stock average closed up 0.9% while, in afternoon trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.57%, Germany’s DAX index lost 0.51% and France’s CAC-40 fell 0.29%.

On Friday, the S&P/TSX composite index closed up 18.73 points, or 0.14%, ending the session at 13,226.76.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index moved up 11.98 points, or 0.47%, and closed at 2,584.99.

The Canadian dollar closed out at US$99.26, down 0.72 of a cent from Thursday’s close.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 28.77 points, or 0.23%, to end at 12,348.21.

The S&P 500 made rallied late afternoon, closing up 1.13 points, or 0.08%, at 1,349.99.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 10.74 points, or 0.46%, to 2,321.80.

For the week, the S&P 500 and the Dow both added 1.4%. The Nasdaq climbed 0.7%.