North American stocks appear poised to rise Monday, as overseas stock markets rose after a week full of worries about the extent of the damage from U.S. subprime-mortgage defaults.

Overseas central banks continued to add liquidity into the market. The European Central Bank said Monday that it had provided around 47.5 billion euros (US$65 billion) in loans, while the Bank of Japan added over US$5 billion.

The FTSE 100 index rose 1.9% in London, and the Nikkei 225 Index edged 0.2% higher in Tokyo.

In today’s economic news, U.S. retail sales opened the second quarter modestly, with a broad-based increase overcoming receding demand for cars

The U.S. Commerce Department reported that retail sales edged up 0.3% in July, a little stronger than expected.

There are no major economic releases from Statistics Canada today.

The Canadian dollar opened at US94.82¢, down 0.1 of a cent.

In earnings news, In earnings news, private-equity house Blackstone Group reported a stronger-than-forecast tripling of its second-quarter profit, but it also said that challenging financial market conditions continue. Blackstone lost US$52.3 million during the last 11 days of the second quarter.

U.S. home builder Hovnanian Enterprises said it delivered 31% fewer homes in its fiscal third quarter and said it’s going to take pre-tax charges of $US90 million to US$110 million on land impairment and development cost write-offs.

Sears Holdings warned on second-quarter profit but added US$1.5 billion to its stock buyback authorization plan.

In other news, Goldman Sachs Group announced it and other investors will inject US$3 billion into a quantitative fund that has seen its performance “suffer significantly”.

Crude-oil futures rose 64¢ to US$72.10 a barrel. Gold futures fell 30¢ to US$681.30 an ounce.

On Friday, the S&P/TSX composite index closed down 11.73 points, or 0.1%, to finish at 13,466.28.

The drop extended a plunge of 280 points booked during Thursday’s session. The index was down 250 points Friday morning, but it recovered toward the closing bell.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 31.14 points, or 0.23%, to end at 13,239.54. Earlier in the session, the Dow fell more than 200 points to a session low at 13,057.86.

The S&P 500 rose just 0.55 of a point, or 0.04%, to finish at 1,453.64. The Nasdaq composite index was down 11.60 points, or 0.45%, at 2,544.89. The Nasdaq had fallen as low as 2,503.16.

For the week, the Dow ended up 0.4%, the S&P rose 1.4% and the Nasdaq gained 1.3%.