North American stocks are likely to climb at the open Monday as earnings season ramps up.

Oil prices rose Monday after OPEC said it will meet later this week to discuss production quotas. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said over the weekend that it would hold an emergency meeting Thursday in Qatar.

Light sweet crude for November delivery was up 30¢ to US$58.87 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by afternoon in Europe.

In this morning’s economic news, Statistics Canada reported a drop in shipments from Canadian factories in August from their highest level of 2006. With commodity prices falling, manufacturers shipped goods worth $49.8 billion, down 0.3% from July, StatsCan said.

The Canadian dollar opened at US87.83¢, down 0.09 of a cent from Friday’s close.

In today’s earnings news, toy maker Mattel Inc. said that third-quarter earnings rose 6% to top Wall Street’s expectations,

U.S. banking giant Wachovia said profit rose 13% on strong results in its banking and capital-management units, although revenue fell short of expectations.

In international banking news, Banca Popolare Italiana Scarl said Monday it agreed to be bought by Banco Popolare Verona e Novara Scarl for US$10.3 billion in a deal that will create Italy’s largest mutual bank and the country’s third-largest lender in terms of branch numbers.

UnitedHealth Group CEO William McGuire agreed to leave the giant U.S. health insurer after an internal probe concluded that the stock-option grants that have brought him a huge fortune were likely manipulated.

European indexes rose in early action.

Asian markets rose as Japanese stocks advanced in a broad-based rally. Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose 156.22 points, or 0.94%, to finish at 16,692.76 points.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index rose 21.34 points, or 0.12%, to 18,010.2.

Toronto stocks rallied Friday, as higher resources prices drove the broader market higher.

The S&P/TSX composite index leaped forward 189.48, or 1.62%, to 11,908.57. The market posted a 217.68 point gain for the week.

All 10 TSX main sub-groups were up.

The S&P TSX Venture composite index shot up 36.52 points, or 1.55%, to 2,393.35.

In New York, markets moved forward on strong corporate earnings and optimism over the U.S. economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 12.81 points to 11,960.51, yet another record finish. The Nasdaq Composite Index moved up 11.11 points to 2,357.29 and the S&P 500 Index inched forward 2.79 points to 1,365.62.

For the week, the Dow gained 0.9%, the Nasdaq rose 2.5% and the S&P 500 was up 1.2%.