Stocks are starting the week on a positive note. Hope for a recovery of corporate profits is boosting market sentiment on the open. Big tech stocks such as Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. are up.

The only economic news is Canada’s international transactions in securities for January. Canadians sold $1.3 billion worth of foreign bonds in January after purchasing a similar amount in December. Canadian investors acquired a small amount of U.S. corporate bonds. Their appetite for foreign shares cooled in January after the large December investment of $4.5 billion. In January they bought just $0.4 billion in overseas equities. There was no cross-border M&A activity to boost these numbers either.

In Europe, stocks are up, despite some bad news from a couple of financial firms. ABN Amro Holding NV is closing its U.S. M&A business and cutting 550 jobs. And, Deutsche Bank CEO Rolf Breuer said bad loans may cut into its profits this year.

But the market is shaking the bad news off. Instead, its trading higher on news that business confidence is rising in France, Germany and Italy. Nokia Oyj, HSBC Holdings plc and Vodafone Group plc are all higher. The FTSE is up 20 points to 5270. The CAC 40 has gained 37 points to 4638. The DAX is up seven ticks to 5373.

Overnight in Asia, markets opened the week with modest slides. The Nikkei slid 84 points to 11261. The Hang Seng dropped 26 points to 10837.

The only M&A news is that Finnish and Swedish state telecoms, Sonera Oyj and Telia AB respectively, are in merger talks.