The Toronto stock market appeared set for a lower open with traders cautious amid worries that the U.S. will end up leading a military strike against Syria, which it accuses of using poison gas against its civilian population.

The Canadian dollar rose 0.29 of a cent to 95.26 cents US ahead of the Bank of Canada’s scheduled interest rate announcement later in the morning (at 10 a.m. EDT).

U.S. futures were mainly lower after Barack Obama got a critical boost on Tuesday when House Speaker John Boehner said he backed the U.S. president’s call for a military strike.

The Dow Jones industrial futures were down 16 points to 14,811, the Nasdaq futures rose seven points to 3,093.5 while the S&P 500 futures slipped 0.5 of a point to 1,638.5.

The U.S. says it has proof that the regime of President Bashar Assad was behind attacks that Washington claims killed at least 1,429 people.

Obama said Tuesday that he’s confident Congress will authorize a military strike. Congress could vote as early as next week, after it returns from summer break.

The major economic data from the U.S. is the release of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s latest reading on the American economy. The so-called Beige Book surveys regional economic indicators and comes out at 2 p.m. EDT.

Traders also hope it will provide clues as to whether the Fed will start winding down its monthly US$85 billion of bond purchases later this month.

Commodity prices headed lower with October crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange down 55 cents to US$107.99.

December copper fell five cents to US$3.25, giving back a chunk of Tuesday’s seven-cent gain that followed strong manufacturing data from China and the U.S.

Gold prices also moved lower as the December contract lost $7.80 to US$1,404.20 an ounce.

The TSX ran ahead 87 points Tuesday, led by gains in telco stocks after U.S. telecom giant Verizon agreed to buy out the remaining stake in its mobile phone business from Vodafone in a massive US$130 billion deal.

At the same time, Verizon made it clear it wasn’t interested in entering the Canadian wireless market.

European bourses were negative as London’s FTSE 100 index declined 0.43 per cent, Frankfurt’s DAX was down 0.65 per cent and the Paris CAC 40 dropped 0.85 per cent.

Earlier in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.5 per cent but benchmarks elsewhere in Asia fell. South Korea’s Kospi declined less than 0.1 per cent, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.7 per cent while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.3 per cent.