U.S. stock futures edged higher Thursday after solid earnings results from Oracle and Nike.

After the close Wednesday, Oracle reported a 35% rise in fiscal second-quarter profit, topping Wall Street’s expectations.

Nike, the world’s biggest sneaker maker, reported a 10% profit rise, beating analyst forecasts.

In today’s earnings news, Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns posted the first quarterly loss in its 84-year history on a higher-than-projected US$1.9 billion in mortgage writedowns.

There are no major economic releases from Statistics Canada today.

The Canadian dollar is trading above parity with the U.S. greenback again. The loonie opened at US100.22¢, up more than half a U.S. cent from Wednesday’s close.

Light sweet crude oil rose 46¢ to US$91.70 a barrel in premarket trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Overseas, the People’s Bank of China increased its interest rate to 7.47% from 7.29% to combat inflation, while the Bank of Japan held interest rates at 0.5% and said downside risks to the Japanese economy are growing.

Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 0.01% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index slipped 0.05%.

In London, the FTSE 100 rose 0.54%, Germany’s DAX index rose 0.48% and France’s CAC-40 rose 0.48%.

Toronto stocks ended higher on Wednesday despite an earnings warning from CIBC.

The S&P/TSX composite closed up 31.75 points, or 0.24% to close at 13,389.82.

The benchmark index took a huge hit late-morning after CIBC announced it would likely face further write-downs of up to US$2 billion as a result of the S&P rating of counterparty ACA Financial Guaranty Corp.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index gained 6.2 points, or 0.24%, and ended the session at 2,601.48.

On Wall Street, markets closed mixed after the U.S. Federal Reserve’s plans to provide US$20 million in loans to banks to ease the global credit crisis was matched by a possible downgrade of bond insurers.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 25.20 points, or 0.19%, shutting down at 13,207.27. The S&P 500 also moved down, losing 1.98 points, or 0.14% to settle at 1,453.

The Nasdaq composite index, however, rose 4.98 points, or 0.19%, closing at 2,601.01.