North American markets are expected to open higher Monday as U.S. traders return to a full work week following the Thanksgiving holiday.

Early reports for U.S. retail sales on the Friday after Thanksgiving, typically one of the busiest shopping days of the year, were an encouraging sign as the holiday shopping season kicks into high gear.

However, retail giant Wal-Mart Stores slashed its prediction for November sales growth to 0.7%, far less than the 2% to 4% growth many analysts had expected

Here at home the Canadian dollar plunged from a 12 ½-year high early Monday, opening at US84¢, down US1.05¢ from Friday’s close, as the greenback also made gains against the euro and the Japanese yen.

In other economic news, Statistics Canada reported today that Canada’s current account surplus with the rest of the world, on a seasonally adjusted basis, decreased by $1.8 billion in the third quarter to $9.4 billion, its first significant drop since the fourth quarter of 2002.

In the capital and financial account (not seasonally adjusted), Canada’s foreign assets rose by more than its international liabilities with direct investment abroad again leading the way.

In a separate release, StatsCan said the average weekly earnings of payroll employees increased by an estimated $3.73 in September, bringing year-over-year gains to 1.7%.

Average hourly earnings for hourly-paid workers were little changed from August to September, up 9¢, but have increased a healthy 3.5% over September a year earlier, StatsCan said.

In today’s business news, BFI Canada Income Fund and IESI Corp. of Fort Worth, Tex., today said they have agreed to a $1.1-billion merger that will give IESI shareholders a 39% stake in one of North America’s largest non-hazardous solid waste management companies. Financial details were not disclosed.

The deal has been approved by the boards of both companies and is expected to immediately add 12% to BFI Canada’s cash distributions per unit, the company said.

Toronto stocks closed higher Friday boosted by gains in resource issues. The S&P/TSX composite index finished up 32.07 points, or 0.35%, at 9,056.97. Volume was light at 197 million shares.

For the week, the index was up 1%.

The heavily weighed financial services group rose 0.35%. Bank of Nova Scotia, Royal Bank and National Bank report quarterly earnings next week.

CIBC gained 1.07% to $71.95 despite a report that the bank CIBC has been faxing confidential information about hundreds of its customers to a scrap yard dealer in West Virginia for more than three years.

Over the weekend, CIBC said it is ordering all its employees to stop using its internal fax system to send customer information between branches or offices.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index finished up 16.43 points, or 0.95%, at 1,744.17, on volume of 105 million shares.

On Wall Street, stocks ended the short session mixed, after hovering around the unchanged mark.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 1.92, or 0.02%, to 10,522.23.

Broader stock indicators were narrowly mixed. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index was up 0.89, or 0.08%, at 1,182.65, while the Nasdaq composite index lost 0.57, or 0.03%, to 2,101.97.

For the week, the Dow rose 0.62%, the S&P 500 gained 1.05%, and the Nasdaq was up 1.51%.