North American markets are expected to open higher trading begins on Monday as investors remain upbeat about the outlook for economic and corporate-profit growth.

In corporate news, PeopleSoft said it expects to post increases for both third-quarter net income and revenue. The stock jumped 15% Friday after the business-software maker terminated Craig Conway as president and chief executive. Oracle, which doggedly has been pursuing an acquisition of PeopleSoft, rose 5.6%.

In economic news, the U.S. Commerce Department is due to report on August factory orders at 10:00 ET. Economists look for a modest 0.3% increase.

There are no major economic releases from Statistics Canada today.

Overnight , the rally in U.S. financial markets Friday spilled over into Asia Monday. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 soared 294.46 points or 2.68%, to 11,279.63.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng rose 239.22 points or 1.82% to 13,359.25,

Energy stocks led a broad-based rally in Toronto Friday, propelled by record oil prices. The S&P/TSX composite index finished up 78.80 points or 0.91% at 8,747.09. Volume was 261.9 million share.

For the week, the index rose 1.8%.

Crude closed above the US$50 a barrel mark in New York on Friday at a record a record US$50.12 a barrel.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index rose 20.27 points or 1.24% to close at 1,649.65.

In New York, stocks rose sharply in heavy trading as software company PeopleSoft Inc. and chip-related stocks boosted the Nasdaq and Standard & Poor’s 500 indexes to their highest closes in about three months.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 112.38 points,or 1.11% at 10,192.65. The S&P 500 ended up 16.92 points or 1.52% at 1,131.50. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index closed up 45.36 points or 2.39% at 1,942.20.

For the week, the Dow ended up 1.45%, while the S&P advanced 1.93% and Nasdaq rose 3.34%. All three indexes turned in their highest weekly percentage gain in six weeks.