Wall Street stock-index futures advanced Thursday following better than expected results from Apple after Wednesday’s closing bell.

After the bell, Apple Inc. announced it earned US$1.21 billion, or US$1.33 a share. The computer maker said its sales rose 9% to US$8.16 billion, higher than analysts were expecting.

Here at home, retail sales edged up 0.2% in February to $33.7 billion, Statistics Canada said Thursday.

The increase comes after large declines in retail sales in November and December, followed by a partial recovery in January. February’s slight increase was price-driven, as sales were down 0.3% in volume terms, StatsCan said.

Investors are also awaiting details of the Bank of Canada’s latest monetary policy report due later this morning.

The Canadian dollar opened at US80.84¢, up 0.19 of a cent from Wednesday’s close.

On the U.S. economics front, new claims for state unemployment benefits rose last week.

Initial claims for state jobless benefits grew 27,000 to 640,000 in the week ended April 18, the U.S. Labour Department said in a weekly report Thursday.

Wall Street economists had expected a 30,000 rise.

U.S. existing-home sales data for March are also due for release.

In today’s earnings news, Suncor Energy Inc. reported a first quarter loss and Potash Corp. posted a dip in quarterly profit for the quarter. Grocery retailer Metro Inc. said its profits jumped more than 40% during the second quarter.

In commodities news, light, sweet crude rose 73¢ to US$49.58 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 1.4% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index gained 2.3%.

In afternoon trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.4%, Germany’s DAX index slipped 0.1%, and France’s CAC-40 rose 0.2%.

The Toronto Stock Exchange carried strong triple-digit gains during much of Wednesday’s trading session, but a late-day sell-off saw the benchmark index give back most of its gains.

The S&P/TSX composite index finished at 9,279.15, up 31.98 points, or 0.4%.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index gained 4.74 points, or 0.5%, to close at 979.12.

In New York, markets in the U.S. let go of earlier gains to finish mostly lower after a series of corporate earnings reports.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 82.99 points, or 1%, to 7,886.57.

The S&P 500 index declined 6.53 points, or 0.8%, to 843.55.

The Nasdaq composite index managed to climb 2.27 points, or 0.1%, to end at 1,646.12.

IE