U.S. stock futures are pointing to a higher open Thursday, buoyed by solid results from IBM and gains at the major bourses in Europe.

After markets closed Wednesday, tech bellwether IBM released its third-quarter earnings ahead of schedule, reporting a 20% profit rise.

Also late Wednesday, the U.S. Federal Reserve said it’s going to lend US$37.8 billion in additional cash to American International Group for domestic life insurance subsidiaries in return for investment grade fixed-income securities.

As well the ban on short selling of financial stocks by U.S. and Canadian regulators was due to expire at midnight Wednesday and traders will be watching the impact on the market today.

Here at home, the Canadian dollar opened at US88.97¢, down 0.09 cent.

There are no major economic releases from Statistics Canada today.

In the United States, Thursday’s economic calendar features weekly jobless claims and August wholesale inventories.

U.S. initial claims for jobless benefits fell 20,000 on a seasonally-adjusted basis to 478,000 in the week ended Oct. 4, the Labour Department said today. Economists had expected claims would fall by 22,000.

In today’s earnings news, Chevron is scheduled to give an update on third-quarter performance and more same-store sales releases are expected from retailers including Gap.

In commodities news, crude oil was up 25¢ at US$89.20 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after falling as low as US$87.32 overnight.

Gold declined US$16 to US$890.50 an ounce, following a gain of US$24.50 in the previous session.

European markets recovered some of yestersday’s losses in morning trade in the wake of the UK government’s US$865 billion bank rescue plan.

Germany’s DAX was 136.99 points, or 2.7%, higher at 5,150.61, while France’s CAC-40 was up 110.85 points, or 3.2%, at 3,607.74. In London, the FTSE 100 index was up 136.90, or 3.1%, at 4,503.59.

Asian markets were mixed overnight as South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan followed the lead of the world’s leading central banks and lowered their interest rates too.

Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose more than 1% but fell back to close down 0.5% to 9,157.49.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index gained 3.6% to 15,985.39.

After a wild ride for stocks on Wednesday, the benchmark index of the Toronto Stock Exchange defied the downward trend among international markets for the day and finished up more than 2%.

After a mid-day drop that saw the S&P/TSX composite index at a triple-digit loss, late-day trading pushed it up by 226.76 points, or 2.31%, to close at 10,056.31.

The S&P/TSX Venture composite index fell 21.82 points, or 1.99%, to close at 1072.64.

In New York, markets were down considerably despite a co-ordinated move by central banks to cut interest rates.

U.S. stocks experienced wild swings similar to those felt on the TSX. By day’s end, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 189 points, or 2%, at 9,258.1. The S&P 500 index lost 11.29 points, or 1.1%, closing at 984.94, while the Nasdaq composite index shed 14.55 points, or 0.8%, to end at 1,740.33.