U.S. stock futures pointed lower Wednesday, after government reports showed slumping housing starts and dropping consumer prices.

In today’s economic news, U.S. October housing starts fell 4.5%, the U.S. Commerce Department said today. That’s the fourth straight month of declines.

A report by the U.S. Labour Department is expected to show that consumer prices fell by 0.5% last month after an unchanged reading for September.

Meanwhile, U.S. consumer prices dropped 1% in October from previous month, the U.S. Labour Department said. Economists had forecast a 0.5% drop.

Excluding food, energy, prices fell 0.1%.

This afternoon, the U.S. Federal Reserve will release the minutes from its last meeting in which it cut rates by half a percentage point.

Here at home, Governor General Michaëlle Jean will unveil Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s legislative agenda for Canada’s 40th Parliament.

The global economic crisis and how the Canadian government plans to deal with the continuing slump are expected be the main focus of the Conservatives’ third speech from the throne.

The Canadian dollar opened at US80.98¢, down 0.33 cent from Tuesday’s close.

In earnings news, the Bank of Nova Scotia warned Tuesday of a bigger-than-expected $595 million (after-tax) hit to its quarterly earnings caused by financial-market upheaval. The other banks are expected to suffer similarly to Scotiabank, which releases its results Dec. 2.

In Wednesday’s earnings news, Metro Inc. posted a $72.3 million in summer-quarter profit, up 25.5% from year-ago earnings that were reduced by the integration of A&P stores.

In commodities news, light, sweet crude for December delivery was down 60¢ at US$53.79 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by noon in Europe. The contract Tuesday fell 56¢ to settle at US$54.39, the lowest since January 2007.

Overseas, the Nikkei 225 Index dropped 0.7% in Tokyo while the UK FTSE 100 Index fell 1.6%.

On Tuesday, Toronto’s benchmark index finished in positive territory despite more declines in commodity prices.

The S&P/TSX composite index finished at 8,835.73, up 40.28 points, or 0.46%.

Gains were led by the financials group, which rose 1% overall.

Junior companies on the S&P/TSX Venture composite index slipped 35.54 points, or 4.52%, to finish the day at 750.25.

South of the border, the main indexes also managed to swing into positive territory by Tuesday’s close.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 151.17 points, or 1.8%, to end at 8,424.75..

The Nasdaq composite index rose 1.22 points, or 0.1%, to close at 1,483.27, and the S&P 500 index finished at 859.12, up 8.37 points, or 1%.

IE