North American stocks are poised to rise on a fresh round of merger activity.

Capital One Financial, one of the largest U.S. credit card companies, over the weekend agreed to buy North Fork Bancorp for US$14.6 billion in cash and stock, a 23% premium to North Fork’s close on Friday. Shares of North Fork jumped 18%, while Capital One lost 5.3% in pre-market trading on Inet. The deal is the latest move by Capital One to reduce its reliance on credit cards by expanding into traditional banking.

Knight-Ridder Inc., the second-largest U.S. newspaper company, has agreed to be sold to rival publisher McClatchy Co. for about US$4.5 billion in cash and stock, the companies said Monday. McClatchy would also assume about US$2 billion in Knight-Ridder debt.

In Europe, Merck KGaA made a hostile US$17.4 billion cash offer for Germany’s Schering AG in a bid rejected by the drug maker. The move puts Schering into play, perhaps attracting the attention of other European pharmaceutical companies.

The London Stock Exchange soared nearly 30% on Monday as shareholders had their first opportunity to react to the Nasdaq Stock Market’s US$4.2 billion offer and reports that the newly public NYSE Group was considering an offer as well. NYSE shares added 1.4% in pre-market trading while those of Nasdaq declined 1.7%.

Overall, European stock markets were higher. The German DAX 30 added 0.7%, the French CAC 40 rose 0.4% and the U.K. FTSE 100 advanced 0.5%.

In Asia, the Nikkei 225 advanced 1.5% in Tokyo despite a downward revision to Japanese gross domestic product in the fourth quarter.

Oil prices rose Monday amid lingering concerns about unrest in Nigeria and the possibility of UN sanctions against Iran. Light sweet crude for April delivery rose 30¢ to US$60.26 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midday in Europe.

In today’s economic news, Statistics Canada said industrial capacity utilization increased only marginally during the last three months of 2005, despite strong exports and personal expenditures.

Industries finished the year operating at 86.3% of their capacity, compared with 86.1% in the third quarter. This slight gain left the rate 1.3 percentage points below the peak of 87.6% reached in the first quarter of 1988.

The Canadian dollar opened at US86.2¢, up 0.01 of a cent.

Toronto stocks finished higher Friday, despite a drop in commodity prices, ending an otherwise negative week on a positive note.

The S&P/TSX composite index gained 0.58%, or 62.28 points, to close 11,833.61. For the week, benchmark index fell 145.07 points.


The S&P/TSX Venture composite index ticked ahead 3.05, or 0.12%, to 2,568.83.

In New York, lower energy prices and a solid February employment report boosted the markets.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 104.06 points at 11,076.34, the Nasdaq composite climbed 12.32 points to 2,262.04, and the S&P 500 Index rose 9.35 points to 1,281.58.

For the week, the Dow industrial gained 0.5%, the Nasdaq dropped 1.8%, and the S&P500 lost 0.4%.