Wall Street stock futures pointed sharply higher Monday as investors welcomed the arrival of long-awaited details on the U.S. Treasury Department’s plan to relieve banks of soured assets.

The U.S. Treasury Department said Monday that its public-private partnership plan could purchase US$1 trillion in soured assets from banks, which would allow them to renew lending.

Here at home, Canadian investors are digesting an announcement by Suncor Energy Inc. and Petro-Canada outlining a merger between the two oil and gas giants.

The share exchange deal will create a company operating under the Suncor name with a combined market capitalization of $43.3 billion.

In Canadian economic news, the February composite leading index fell 1.1% after a 0.9% decrease in January, with 9 of the 10 components declining, Statistics Canada reported Monday.

The housing and stock markets continued to post the largest declines, while losses in manufacturing steepened as the auto industry began to implement extensive shutdowns at the turn of the year.

The Canadian dollar opened at US81.09¢ on Monday, up 0.41 of a cent from Friday’s close.

In commodities news, Light, sweet crude rose 44¢ to US$52.51 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 3.4%. In afternoon trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 1.5%, Germany’s DAX index rose 1.4%, and France’s CAC-40 rose 0.9%.

The benchmark index of the Toronto Stock Exchange incurred its first loss in nine sessions on Friday, shedding more than 2% led by weakness among energy stocks.

The S&P/TSX composite index fell 184.14 points, or 2.1%, to close at 8,506.35. For the week, the benchmark index added 2.4%.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite dipped 1.77 points, or 0.2%, to close at 901.8.

In New York, U.S. equities also ended lower on Friday, but finished the week with gains.

The Dow Jones industrial average declined 122.42 points, or 1.7%, to 7,278.38, leaving the blue-chip index up 0.7% for the week.

The S&P 500 index fell 15.5 points, or 2%, to land at 768.54, up 1.5% from the week-ago close.

The Nasdaq composite index shed 26.21 points, or 1.8%, to 1,457.27, leaving the index up 1.8% from last Friday’s close

IE

Friday close: TSX ends winning streak