Toronto's main stock index looked set to climb a mite higher at Friday’s open, on hope that debt-laden Italy will implement tough austerity measures crucial to avoid a euro-zone meltdown.
Among Canadian stocks to watch this morning, IGM Financial said on Thursday its quarterly earnings rose sharply along with revenue and investment income.
Bombardier Inc. is sticking with a late-2013 launch date for its all-new C-Series jetliner, to compete with Boeing and Airbus planes, although company officials said meeting that deadline will not be easy
Construction whiz Stella Jones reported a higher quarterly profit on strong demand for its core railway tie and utility pole businesses.
South of the border, futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 60 points to 11,915.00 and S&P 500 index futures rose 7.60 points to 1,245.00. Nasdaq 100 futures gained 13.50 points to 2,317.00.
Later in the morning, the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index for November will be released, in what is otherwise an uneventful day for U.S. economic news.
Meanwhile, European markets were higher today, with the STOXX Europe 600 Index gained 0.56%, London's FTSE 100 Index moved up 0.48%, French CAC 40 index rose 0.55% and German DAX 30 index gained 0.92%.
Asian markets ended mostly higher, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average rising 0.16%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 moving up 1.19% and China's Shanghai Composite rising 0.06%. and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 0.91%
The price of crude oil moved above $98 U.S. a barrel, while the dollar was off 0.15 of a cent to 98.15 cents U.S.
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