North American stocks look set to open mostly lower Thursday after crude-oil prices hit a new intraday high near US$76 a barrel.

Light sweet crude oil for August delivery shot up 94¢ to US$75.89 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, surpassing the previous intraday high of US$75.78 set last Friday. By midday in Europe, the price eased back to US$75.82, up 87¢.

The Canadian dollar opened at US88.28¢, up 0.12 of a cent.

In U.S. economic news, the U.S. Labor Department said initial jobless claims increased by 19,000 to a seasonally adjusted 332,000 in the week ended July 8. Contributing to the gain were annual shutdowns by auto makers retooling their plants and making changes for the model-year shift. Economists had forecast a rise of 7,000 claims for the week.

In M&A news, Canada Southern Petroleum’s board urged shareholders Wednesday to accept a sweetened bid by Canadian Oil Sands Trust that topped Petro-Canada’s offer for the company. Canada Southern’s board unanimously recommended shareholders accept Canadian Oil Sands’ offer of US$13.10 per share, which values the company with potentially large Arctic gas holdings at about US$188.8 million.

European indexes dropped in early action.

Most Asian markets declined. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index fell for a third day, dropping 151.37 points, or 0.99%, to 15,097.95.

In Hong Kong, the blue-chip Hang Seng Index fell 216.73 points, or 1.3%, to 16,305.48.

Toronto stocks fell Wednesday, with the financials and utilities sectors leading the market downward. Meanwhile oil and gold prices rose on geopolitical worries.

The S&P/TSX composite index fell 21.91 points, or 0.19%, to 11,771.07.

In M&A news, Bell Globemedia announced it will buy broadcaster CHUM Ltd., possibly spurring a new round of consolidation in that sector. Astral Media shares climbed 9.35%, while Corus Entertainment shares rose 9.3%. CHUM shares were halted while BCE Inc. stock fell 21¢ to $26.20.

The S&P/TSX Venture composite index gained 22.33 points, or 0.85%, to 2,659.70.

In New York, U.S. markets closed lower on concerns that the current earnings season will fall short of expectations.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 121.59 points to 11,013.18, the Nasdaq was down 38.62 points to 2,090.24, while the S&P 500 dropped 13.67 points to 1,258.85.