The Canadian Press

The Toronto stock market was likely headed for a flat open Tuesday following solid gains that opened the 2010 trading year.

The Canadian dollar jumped 0.58 of a cent to US96.6¢ as the U.S. currency weakened for a second day. A soft greenback pushed the loonie up 0.87 of a cent on Monday.

New York futures also pointed to a weak open after strong manufacturing data from the U.S. and China encouraged investors. The Dow Jones industrial futures added a point to 10,520, the Nasdaq futures inched up 0.25 of a point to 1,887 and the S&P 500 futures gained 1.5 points to 1,130.3.

The weak American currency also helped push up some commodity prices with the February crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange ahead 21¢ to US$81.72 after surging more than US$2 on Monday.

In the oilpatch, Noble Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NBL) will pay US$494 million to acquire the Rockies upstream assets of Petro-Canada Resources (USA) Inc. and Suncor Energy (Natural Gas) America Inc. (TSX:SU). The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter.

The February bullion contract in New York rose $9.10 to US$1,127.40 an ounce while March copper was off a cent to US$3.39 a pound.

Beyond Monday’s manufacturing data, there is plenty of other data for investors to consider this week.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Commerce Department will report on factory orders and while the National Association of Realtors’ will roll out numbers on pending home sales. Analysts expect factory orders to have risen a moderate 0.5%, according to a Thomson Reuters survey.

Investors were also awaiting, on Friday, perhaps the most critical economic report, the U.S. Labour Department’s assessment of employment during December.

The Canadian employment report for December is also released on Friday.

Overseas, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng moved up 2.1% and Shanghai’s main stock measure climbed 1.2%. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 stock average added 0.3%.

London’s FTSE 100 was ahead 0.63%, Frankfurt’s DAX added 0.07% while the Paris CAC 40 was up 0.23%.

In other corporate news, Kraft Foods Inc. said it will revise its hostile takeover offer for British chocolate and gum maker Cadbury PLC, offering more cash funded by the sale of its North American pizza business to Nestle.

Nestle, which paid US$3.7 billion for Kraft’s pizza operations — including the Tombstone and Jack’s brands in the U.S. — ruled itself out of a potential bidding war for Cadbury.