Stocks may open higher Thursday after U.S. retail sales surged during November, which suggests the U.S. economy might not be as weak as feared.

Retail sales increased by 1.2%, the U.S. Commerce Department said Thursday. Economists has called for 0.6% advance in November.

Meanwhile U.S. wholesale price also soared last month, a sign that the recent trend to disinflation may be coming to an end. The producer price index for finished goods jumped 3.2% in November, the U.S. Labor Department said today., the biggest one-month rise since August 1973.

The core PPI, which excludes food and energy, was up 0.4%, matching the biggest increase in one year.

The figures doubled Wall Street expectations of a 1.7% rise in the headline index and 0.2% rise in the core.

Here at home, manufacturing sales held their ground in October after weakening in August and September, Statistics Canada reported.

Manufacturing sales edged up 0.1% in October, basically holding steady after decreasing in five of the six previous months. Sales of manufactured goods increased $38 million, reaching $50.2 billion from $50.1 billion in September.

Separately, StatsCan reported labour productivity of Canadian businesses rose 0.2% in the third quarter, the same growth rate as that recorded in the previous quarter. In comparison, productivity growth in the United States accelerated sharply to reach 1.6%.

The loonie opened at US98.67¢ this morning, down three one-hundredths of a cent from Wednesday’s close.

In earnings news, Costco Wholesale said its fiscal first-quarter profit grew 11%.

In M&A news, Dow Chemical said it will get US$9.5 billion before tax in return for selling a 50% stake in its petrochemicals operation to Kuwait Petroleum.

Light sweet crude oil rose 17¢ to US$94.56 per barrel in premarket electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Overseas, the FTSE 100 fell 1.5% in London, Germany’s DAX index lost 0.87% and France’s CAC-40 fell 1.74%. Japan’s Nikkei stock average closed down 2.48%, while Hong Kong’s Heng Sang index lost 2.72%.

Toronto stocks rebounded on Wednesday, getting a lift from rising energy issues.

Financial markets recovered from the previous session’s sharp drop after central banks joined forces today to launch short-term funding to ease the credit crunch.

The Bank of Canada said it is making more money available to commercial banks in an effort to ease pressures in global credit markets.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 85.67 points, or 0.62%, at 13,809.38, after rising as high as 13,942.04

Stocks pulled back late in the day as nervousness returned to the market.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index gained 10.51 points, or 0.39%, to 2,735.58.

In New York, stocks ended moderately higher, but well off session highs as investors worried whether action taken by the central banks was enough to shore up the U.S. economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 41.13 points, or 0.31%, to end at 13,473.90. The S&P 500 was up 8.94 points, or 0.61%, at 1,486.59. The Nasdaq composite index was up 18.79 points, or 0.71%, at 2,671.14.