NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Stocks were poised for a rough start Thursday as concerns about energy and the nation's real estate market and lower overseas markets overcame an optimistic outlook from chipmaker Texas Instruments.

U.S. stock futures were down, indicating a lower opening for stocks.

Oil prices were higher ahead of next week's OPEC meeting after Wednesday's sell-off on an unexpected build in U.S. fuel inventories. The January light crude futures contract for NYMEX gained 36 cents to $59.57 a barrel in electronic trading, while the January contract for Brent crude was up 53 cents to $57.51.

Toll Brothers (Research), a major luxury home builder, reported strong fiscal fourth quarter earnings but said it saw a slowing in demand for housing to pre-2003 levels and gave guidance for fiscal 2006 earnings that was below current Wall Street forecasts. The report followed other more bearish real estate forecasts in recent days, including one from UCLA Anderson school of business that saw a downturn in housing hurting economic growth in the next several years.

Major markets in Asia closed sharply lower Thursday, led by a nearly 2 percent drop in Japan's Nikkei index. Major European markets also were lower in early trading.

U.S. futures and overseas stocks were having trouble despite Texas Instruments (Research) telling analysts after the bell Wednesday that it now expects sales at the high end of its earlier guidance. Shares of TI gained almost 2 percent in after-hours trading.

After the bell Thursday, No. 1 chipmaker Intel will give its own mid-quarter guidance. Shares of Intel (Research) were slightly lower in Frankfurt trading early Thursday.

Treasury prices were higher, lowering the yield on the 10-year note to 4.50 percent from the 4.51 percent level late Wednesday. The dollar lost ground against the euro and the yen.

In other corporate news, General Motors (Research) said Wednesday it was in discussions with billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. for a seat on its board of directors. Tracinda bought a 9.9 percent stake in GM earlier this year, a money-losing investment to date.

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