Canada's main stock index was set for a firmer open on Thursday, helped by a drop in U.S. jobless claims, though trading was expected to be volatile ahead of a high-stakes E.U. summit on Friday.
Among Canadian stocks to watch this morning, fertilizer giant Potash Corp said it settled a lawsuit with Mosaic over rights to the Esterhazy potash mine in Saskatchewan.
Energy whiz Enbridge Inc.’s CEO said Wednesday he does not expect a big jump in costs due to a one-year addition to the hearing schedule for its $5.5 billion Northern Gateway pipeline to Canada's West Coast from Alberta.
The Canadian dollar rose to 99.15 U.S. cents.
The Brussels summit starts on Thursday and is expected to last into the weekend. A French-German proposal to add tougher budget rules to European treaties is being met with resistance by the European Council, which favours a simpler route -- amending existing rules that apply to the 17 euro countries to avoid the trickier step of requiring every country to approve the new treaty.
Ahead of the summit, the European Central Bank cut interest rates again, a quarter of a percentage point to 1%, and pledged to provide cash-strapped banks with more liquidity.
In response to the move, Britain's FTSE 100 gained 0.8%, France's CAC 40 moved 0.9% higher and Germany's DAX rose 1.2%.
Dow stock futures inched 0.2% lower to 12,188, while S&P 500 futures were down 0.4% to 1,259.20, about half an hour before the New York Stock Exchange opened.
Japan's Nikkei and Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.7% each.
Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange edged up 0.3% to $7,841 U.S. a tonne.
Gold dipped $2.40 to $1,742.40 U.S. an ounce.
Crude oil rose 0.5% to $101.01 U.S. a barrel.
