North American stocks appear headed for a sharply higher opening Thursday, lifted by upbeat earnings from tech stalwarts Nokia, Motorola and eBay, as well as a fresh round of merger activity.

Nokia reported its net income rose 18% as the world’s largest cellphone maker recaptured market share with the rollout of new products.

Motorola said its profit climbed 14% as the company grabbed a bigger slice of the global cellphone market.

eBay, said first-quarter earnings rose 28% as revenue increased by more than a third.

Celestica trimmed its first-quarter loss to US$11.6 million, from a year-earlier US$12.1 million, as revenue rose 7%.

In merger news, Time Warner and Comcast, the two largest cable-television companies in the U.S., said they will pay US$12.7 billion in cash and 16% of the stock in Time Warner’s cable subsidiary, Time Warner Cable, to buy the assets of Adelphia Communications. The deal beat out a last-minute bid by Cablevision Systems.

In today’s economic news, the US. Labor Department said initial jobless claims fell by a seasonally adjusted 36,000 to 296,000 in the week that ended April 16. The decline in claims was the biggest drop in more than three years. Economists expected jobless claims to be unchanged at 330,000.

The U.S. Conference Board is due to release the index of leading economic indicators for March at 10 a.m. Economists look for a 0.3% decrease.

Here at home, Statistics Canada said trong consumer spending in most retail stores pushed sales above the $30 billion mark for the first time ever. Retail sales jumped 1.7% in February to $30.4 billion, following a 2.1% gain in January.

North American markets closed lower Wednesday as fresh concerns about U.S. inflation offset a series of solid profit reports. Toronto’s S&P/TSX index finished down 37.59 points, or 0.40%, at 9,378.11.

Energy stocks led the decline with a 1% drop, while the materials group followed closely with a slide of 0.8%.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index edged 6.94 points lower, or 0.40%, to 1,735.44.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 115.05 points, or 1.14% to 10,012.36.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite lost 18.60 points, 0.96% to 1,913.76 and the S&P 500 index was down 15.28, or 1.33%, at 1,137.50.

U.S. consumer prices jumped 0.6%in March, the biggest surge in five months. Core prices, excluding energy and food, rose by a worrisome 0.4% in March, double what economists had expected.