Source: The Canadian Press

The Toronto stock market headed for a lower open Tuesday with weakness coming from financials after Bank of Montreal’s (TSX:BMO) earnings missed expectations and resource stocks as oil and metal prices backed off amid concern that global growth is slowing.

U.S. dollar strength helped push the Canadian dollar down 0.99 of a cent to 94.04 cents US.

Worries that American economic momentum is slowing pushed the Dow Jones industrial futures down 85 points to 10,072, the Nasdaq futures fell 18 points to 1,791.5 while the S&P 500 futures declined 11.2 points to 1,054.4.

Bank of Montreal (TSX:BMO) kicked off the quarterly earnings season for the big banks by handing in a profit of $669-million. The bank says its profits were equal to $1.14 per share of cash earnings, about seven cents short of analyst estimates.

However, the profit was still 20% higher than a year ago, while revenue was down slightly to $2.91 billion from $2.98 billion.

BMO’s capital markets division was hit particularly hard with a 58% decrease in profits to $130 million as it contended with lower trading revenues affected by the economic uncertainty out of Europe.

CIBC (TSX:CM) reports earnings Wednesday while National Bank (TSX:NA) and Royal Bank (TSX:RY) hand in results on Thursday.

Oil prices slumped as the U.S. dollar strengthened against the euro ahead of data expected to show rising inventories.

Analysts are forecasting a build of 1.1 million barrels in U.S. crude oil stocks and a draw of 875,000 barrels in gasoline stocks, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

The American Petroleum Institute will release its inventory data later Tuesday while the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration reports its weekly supply data — the market benchmark — on Wednesday.

Oil prices have fallen more than US$9 a barrel since the beginning of August on demand concerns.

The October crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 89 cents to US$72.21 a barrel.

Other commodity prices were weak with the September copper contract on the Nymex down four cents to US$3.25 and the December bullion contract was down $9.40 to US$1,219.10 an ounce.

On the economic calendar, Canadian investors will get the June reading on retail sales. Economists expect that sales rose 0.3%.

In the U.S., the National Association of Realtors is expected to report that sales of previously occupied homes plunged in July to their lowest level in more than a decade. Economists predict sales fell as much as 26% in July from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.95 million.

Sales have tumbled since a home buyer tax credit expired at the end of April.

Economists also expect the July report on U.S. durable goods orders will show a rise of about 2.8%, fuelled largely by a near-tripling in aircraft orders at Boeing.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei index led markets lower as the yen’s rise to a fresh 15-year high against the U.S. dollar and a nine-year high against the euro hit the share prices of the country’s high-value exporters.

The index closed down 1.3% amid worries that the rising yen will make Japanese exports less competitive in the international marketplace and limit already paltry economic growth.

Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng sank 1.1% and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dropped 1.1%.

In other corporate news, HudBay Minerals Inc. (TSX:HBM) says it has bought 10.9 million shares in Augusta Resource Corp. (TSX:AZC) for about $30 million, increasing its stake in the base metals miner to 11%.

Penn West Energy Trust (TSX:PWT.UN) says it has struck a deal with a unit of Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation forming a 50-50 joint venture to develop the Calgary company’s gas assets in northeastern British Columbia.

London’s FTSE 100 index shed 1.33%, Frankfurt’s DAX lost 1.17% and the Paris CAC 40 was down 1.71%.