North American stocks are expected to trade higher at the open Thursday as a larger-than-anticipated decline in U.S. new housing starts and a sharp decline in jobless claims had little effect on futures.

U.S. housing starts declined 5.6% in October as mortgages rates continued to climb. Building permits also fell, sliding 6.7%, the Commerce Department said.

Economists had expected starts to decline by 2.8%.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Labor Department said initial jobless claims last week declined by 25,000.

Later today, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve is slated to release its November business index; a reading of 17 is expected.

Here at home, Canadians purchased $5 billion worth of foreign securities in September, all of it in foreign debt instruments, Statistics Canada said today.

Meanwhile, after a reduction in holdings of Canadian securities in August, foreign investors made their biggest investment of the year — $4.9 billion — with two-thirds in Canadian stocks.

The Canadian dollar opened at US83.93¢, up 0.14 of a cent.

Crude-oil prices rose 27¢ to US$58.15 a barrel in early trading Thursday, a day after the U.S. goverment said crude inventories fell by 2.2 million barrels last week, when a two-million-barrel build was expected.

Overseas, Europe markets climbed on mergers-and-acquisitions news. London’s FTSE 100 was up 0.7% recently.

Swiss insurer Zurich Financial Services said that its profit rose 23% to US$457 million in the third quarter despite spiralling hurricane claims. That compares with a profit of $373 million in the July-September period a year earlier.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 advanced 1.7% to end at 14,411.79, helped by a weaker U.S. dollar.


Toronto stocks finished sharply higher Wednesday, as resource stocks were pulled ahead by rising oil and gold prices.

The S&P/TSX composite index finished up 98.14 points, or 0.92%, to 10,727.04.

The health care sector was the biggest decliner, losing 1.68%. Biovail lost $1.60, or 3.04%, to $24.91 on news the company was spinning off its non-patent pharmaceutical division into an income trust.

The technology group shed 1.6%, dragged down by Research In Motion Ltd., which lost $3.07, or 3.82%, to $77.25.

Shares of the Blackberry e-mail device maker fell after mobile giant Nokia said it will buy wireless messaging and e-mail management firm Intellisync about US$430 million to boost its position in the corporate mobile e-mail market.

Connors Brothers Income Fund lost 13% of its value, falling $1.46 to $9.63 after it said it was considering reducing its distributions by 8% to 10% because of high costs. The Fund owns Clover Leaf Seafoods and Bumble Bee Foods.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index finished up 5.23, or 0.26%, to 2,001.98.

In New York, higher energy prices largely offset positive economic data.

The Dow Jones industrial index fell 11.68, or 0.11%, to 10,674.76. The S&P 500 rose 2.20, or 0.18%, to 1,231.21, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 1.19, or 0.05%, to 2,187.93.