The Canadian dollar opened trading Friday at US104.01¢, and up about half a cent from Thursday’s close.

The move comes as crude oil prices spiked above US$92 a barrel in Asia on growing tensions in the Middle East and renewed concern about oil supplies.

In other oil related news, Alberta intends to take about $1.4 billion more from the province’s energy industry by the end of the decade.

The province announced Thursday its decision to bump royalties 20% by 2010.

Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures were slightly higher Friday after Microsoft reported strong earnings results.

After markets closed on Thursday, Microsoft reported a surprisingly strong 23% gain in quarterly profit, buoyed by sales of the Vista operating system and the Halo 3 video game.

On the economic front, Canadian manufacturers’ optimism in the last two quarters waned as they looked ahead to the final three months of 2007. According to October Business Conditions Survey released today by Statistics Canada, manufacturers indicated heightened dissatisfaction with the level of orders received, while production prospects weakened.

South of the border, the final release of the October consumer confidence poll from the University of Michigan is due shortly after the open.

In other earnings news, Countrywide Financial posted a US$1.2 billion third-quarter loss on write-downs, hurt by the collapse of the subprime-mortgage market.

In M&A news, Oracle rejected BEA Systems’ proposed acquisition price of US$21 per share.

In other financial news, the Wall Street Journal reports that a former Royal Bank of Canada trader alleged in a series of e-mails, that some of his colleagues intentionally mis-valued, “plain-vanilla government agency and corporate bonds in a bid to boost profits at the firm’s New York-based investment-banking unit.”

Gold futures rose as high as $782.20 an ounce.

Overseas, European stocks rose for the second straight day, with the UK’ FTSE 100 Index up 0.2%.

Asian shares ended higher as Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 1.36%, rebounding from the previous session’s loss.


The Toronto Stock Exchange finished higher on Thursday, powered ahead by energy shares that rose with record oil prices.

The S&P/TSX composite index gained 36.43 points, or 0.26%, to finish at 14,124.94.

Six of the 10 TSX main groups finished higher.

The energy sector gained 1.2% as the price of oil rose on tight inventories. The December crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange jumped $3.36 to US$90.46 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index jumped 33.50 points, or 1.11%, to 3,052.18.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average slipped 3.33 points to 13,671.92. The S&P 500 dipped 1.48 points to 1,514.40.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 23.90 points, or 0.86%, to 2,750.86.