Wall Street futures pointed to a positive open for stocks Thursday as Canadian investors digested a fresh batch of bank earnings reports.

National Bank posted a 46% jump in second-quarter profit, while Toronto-Dominion Bank said its Q2 profit fell as it took restructuring and hedging charges.

CIBC said its losses narrowed during the second quarter.

South of the border, orders for durable goods climbed by 1.9% last month, beating the average forecasts of Wall Street economists.

Meanwhile while the number of American newly seeking unemployment benefits last week fell 13,000 to 623,000.

Here at home, total non-farm payroll employment fell by 60,700 in March, down 0.4% from the previous month, Statistics Canada reported.

The Canadian dollar opened at US89.53¢, up 0.20 of a cent from Wednesday’s close.

In other earnings news, big box retailer Costco Wholesale reported a 29% drop in fiscal third-quarter earnings, hurt by a strong dollar and weaker sales, among other factors.

In commodities news, crude oil was slightly higher after OPEC left its output targets unchanged at a summit in Vienna. The front-month July futures contract rose to about US$63.50 a barrel in electronic trading.

Overseas, Hong Kong’s stock market was closed for a holiday, though Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 Average edged up 0.1%.

In Europe, the UK’s FTSE 100 was down 1.2%, Germany’s DAX index fell 1.2%, and France’s CAC-40 fell 1%

On Wednesday, the Toronto Stock Exchange plunged lower on Wednesday afternoon, erasing earlier gains as financial stocks tumbled.

The S&P/TSX composite index dropped 143.74 points, or 1.4%, to end at 10,142.16.

The financials group gave back a chunk of the gains it registered on Tuesday, falling 2.9% during Wednesday’s trading.

Shares of Laurentian Bank of Canada dropped 5% after it reported quarterly earnings of $21.2 million, down from $25.1 million a year earlier. The bank’s shares fell $1.53 to $29.22.

Junior companies on the TSX Venture Exchange also declined on Wednesday, sending the Venture composite index down 4.17 points, or 0.4%, to 1,092.99.

Stocks south of the border also finished with hefty losses on Wednesday on concerns that automaker General Motors Corp. could file for bankruptcy.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 173.47 points, or 2.1%, to end at 8,300.02.

The S&P 500 index fell 17.27 points, or 1.9%, to close at 893.06.

The Nasdaq composite index dipped 19.35 points, or 1.1%, to end at 1,731.08.

IE