North American stock markets are likely to open lower Tuesday as oil prices moved up.

Oil prices rose above US$60 a barrel as traders awaited an OPEC meeting later in the week where cartel members plan to discuss production quotas.

Light, sweet crude for November delivery rose 10¢ to US$60.04 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The Canadian dollar opened at US88.03 cents, up 0.09 of a cent, ahead of today’s announcement of interest rates by the Bank of Canada.

In today’s economic news, U.S. wholesale prices took their sharpest drop in three years during September as gasoline prices made a record plunge, but core inflation raced up triple the rate expected.

The U.S. producer price index for finished goods fell by 1.3% on a seasonally adjusted basis last month, after increasing 0.1% in August, the Labor Department said today. The September drop in the PPI was the largest since prices fell 1.4% in April 2003.

The producer price index for goods excluding food and energy costs increased 0.6% in September. This “core” rate dropped 0.4% in August. The September climb in the core rate was the largest increase since a matching rise in January 2005.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. is set to buy CBOT Holdings Inc., creating a gaint global derivatives exchange with combined daily trading volume approaching nine million contracts.

The all-stock deal is valued at about US$8 billion.

In today’s earnings news, Merrill Lynch’s net income more than doubled, helped by a big gain from its recent merger with fund manager BlackRock.

Quarterly releases will come later today from corporate heavyweights including Johnson & Johnson and United Technologies. After Tuesday’s close, chip giant Intel, technology behemoth International Business Machines, phone maker Motorola and Internet-services group Yahoo unveil quarterly results.

European indexes were down in early action, while Asian markets closed mixed.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index lost 81,17 points, or 0.49%, to 16,611.59 points on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

In Hong Kong, the blue-chip Hang Seng Index ended a volatile session up just 0.03%, or 4.64 points, at 18,014.84.

The S&P/TSX composite index surged ahead more than 150 points Monday closing above 12,000 for the first time in six weeks, as commodity stocks rallied.

The TSX benchmark jumped 152.97 points, or 1.3%, to 12,061.54, after a strong 1.8% gain last week.


The junior S&P/TSX Venture Exchange gained 28.83 points to 2,422.18.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average set a fresh record close.

The Dow was up 20.09 points, or 0.17%, to end at a record 11,980.60. The S&P 500 was up 3.43 points, or 0.25%, at 1,369.05. The Nasdaq composite index as up 6.55 points, or 0.28%, at 2,363.84.