North American stocks look to open lower Tuesday, as traders prepare for U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell scheduled appearance before the U.N. Security Council Wednesday. Powell will present evidence to back U.S. allegations that Iraq has deceived weapons inspectors and has ties to terrorism.

In economic news, new orders for U.S. manufactured durable goods in December increased $0.4 billion or 0.2%to US$170.1 billion, the U.S. Department of Commerce, reported today. This followed a 1.3% November decrease.

Excluding transportation, new orders increased 1.1 %. Excluding defense, new orders decreased 0.2%t. New orders for 2002 were 0.1% below the prior year.

The mood among Canadian manufacturers continued to be guarded in January according to Statistics Canada. In its Business Conditions Survey: Manufacturing industries for January, released today, StatsCan says producers indicated some lower satisfaction with the levels of new and unfilled orders for the first quarter of 2003.

European stocks declined in morning trading Tuesday. The technology sector was weakest, dragged lower by Alcatel after it warned of a continued slump in demand.

Paris’s CAC 40 index declined 32.51 points, to 2,925.28.

London’s FTSE 100 index was down 9.9 points at 3.679.5, while Frankfurt’s DAX index fell 32.94 points to 2,719.05.

Asian markets closed mixed overnight. Hong Kong stocks ended slightly lower on the first day of trading after the Chinese New Year holidays. The Hang Seng slipped 6.24 points to 9,252.71.

In Tokyo, the benchmark 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average lost 15.89 points to 8,484.9.

After the close of markets Monday, EnCana announced the sale of 10% of the Syncrude oilsands venture to Canadian Oil Sands for almost $1.1 billion.

Also after the close, Magna International disclosed it will take a US$26 million hit on its fourth-quarter earnings because of asset writedowns at subsidiaries Intier Automotive and Tesma International.

In other corporate news, Royal Bank CEO Gordon Nixon urged the Commons finance committee on Monday to clarify the rules governing big bank mergers so Canadian institutions can put together deals allowing them to bulk up as protection against foreign takeovers. Nixon said international trade deals and dissolving borders make it increasingly likely that global financial service giants will try to swallow Canadian institutions.