Wall Street stock futures moved lower on Tuesday, as investors braced for another wave of earnings reports.

Here at home, Statistics Canada said 778,700 people received regular Employment Insurance benefits, up 65,600, or 9.2%, from a month earlier.

Alberta and Ontario showed the fastest rates of increase during the month, StatsCan said.

The number of people receiving regular benefits in May was the highest since comparable data became available in 1997, the government agency said.

The Canadian dollar opened at US92.70¢, up 0.2 of a cent from Monday’s close.

In today’s earnings news, Rogers Communications Inc. reported a quarterly a profit of $374 million, or 59¢ a share. That compared to a profit of $301 million, or 47¢ a share, a year ago.

Western Forest Products Inc. said weak demand for its products and tough economic conditions led to a widened quarterly loss and cut sales by 44%.

The company reported a loss of 30.1 million, or 6¢ a share, for the quarter ended June 30. That compared to a loss of $13.7 million, or 7¢ a share, a year earlier.

Germany’s biggest bank, Deutsche Bank, said on Tuesday its profit soared by 68% in the second quarter as financial markets around the world showed tentative signs of stabilizing.

The bank posted net profit of 1.1 billion euros (US$1.6 billion) in the period April to June, driven mainly by the strong performance of its investment-banking wing, where revenues jumped 84%.

On today’s U.S. economics calendar, the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index for May is due at 9:00 ET, and Conference Board consumer confidence data for July are due at 10:00 ET.

Economists project a July reading of 49 for the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence index.

In today’s M&A news, IBM said it would pay US$1.2 billion, or US$50 a share, to buy Chicago business analytics firm SPSS.

Bankruptcy courts in Toronto and Wilmington, Delaware are expected to rule today on LM Ericsson’s bid to buy Nortel Network’s wireless business.

The Swedish wireless giant has bid US$1.13 billion for Nortel’s wireless assets.

In commodities news, oil futures fell 33¢ to $68.05 a barrel.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average fell 0.01% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index moved up 1.9%.

European stocks were mixed in afternoon trading, the UK’s FTSE 100 declined 0.2%, Germany’s DAX index rose 0.1%, and France’s CAC-40 gained 0.3%.

On Monday, strength in financial stocks offset declines in consumer staples and information technology stocks, helping the benchmark index of the Toronto Stock Exchange finish higher.

The S&P/TSX composite index gained 69.53 points, or 0.7%, to close at 10,757.43.

The financials group added 2.2%.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index edged up 3.62 points, or 0.3%, to close at 1,147.04.

South of the border, strength in financials helped the main U.S. stock market indices recover from earlier losses to finish with modest gains.

The Dow Jones industrial average added 15.27 points, or 0.2%, to end at 9,108.51.

The S&P 500 index gained 2.92 points, or 0.3%, to finish at 982.18.

The Nasdaq composite index rose 1.93 points, or 0.1%, to close at 1,967.89.

IE