August retail sales came in at $7.7 billion in says Statistics Canada. That’s an increase of 3.6% from August 2002 for the group of large retailers.

Growth rates varied among the major groups. At the two extremes were strong growth in home furnishing and electronic sales, and a slight decline in clothing, footwear and accessory sales.

In the U.S., investors have been greeted by some good news bout the housing market this morning. Home-building activity rebounded in September to its second-highest level this year, says the U.S. Commerce Department.

Housing starts rose 3.4% to a seasonally adjusted 1.888 million annual rate. This follows a revised drop of 3.4% in August to a 1.826 million rate. On the downside, building permits, an indicator of future building activity, have dropped 2.2% to a 1.860 million annual rate.

This mixed news, plus skepticism about the jobless recovery has resulted in weak Wall Street futures trading, foreshadowing a weak opening for equity markets.

Investors will be looking later this morning to the Michigan consumer sentiment survey for October, which is due out at 10:00 ET.

In Europe at midday, London’s FTSE 100 is unchanged. Frankfurt’s DAX is down 0.5%. In Paris the CAC 40 is 0.4% higher.

Yesterday, the Toronto Stock Exchange S&P/TSX composite index rose 9.59 points, or 0.12 percent, to 7,792.80.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average was down11.33 points to close at 9,791.72, well off its lowest levels of the day.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index was up 11.04 points to close at 1950.14, reversing earlier losses. The broader S&P 500 gained 3.31 points to close at 1,050.07.

The Canadian dollar soared over the US76¢ level for the first time in almost 10 years before settling back in the afternoon.

The loonie closed at US75.87¢, up 0.47 of a cent — its highest close since January 1994.