North American stocks may rise at the open Wednesday, a day after Toronto stocks plunged following a sharp decline in commodity prices.

Gold prices, which came close to US$580 an ounce only last week, plunged nearly $20 an ounce to US$554.80 on Tuesday, and oil gave up $2.02 to US$63.09 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Prices continued to fall Wednesday, with gold dipping below US$550 an ounce in early trade and March crude-oil futures falling below US$63 a barrel in electronic trade.

Later today, the U.S. government is expected to report that supplies of crude oil, distillate fuel and gasoline are higher than normal.

In business news, Nortel Networks Corp. today proposed to pay UW$2.5 billion in cash and stock to settle two shareholder class-action lawsuits in the United States over an accounting scandal in 2004. The would include US$575 million in cash and payment of shares representing a 14.5% stake in the company.

In today’s earnings news, Falconbridge Ltd. Said its fourth-quarter profit almost doubled to US$280 million.

Shares in tech bellwether Cisco climbed more than 7% on Inet, after topping Wall Street earnings forecasts late Tuesday in its second quarter results. Net income fell 1.8%, hurt by expenses related to employee stock options, as the world’s biggest maker of networking equipment also posted a 9.3% increase in revenue.

PepsiCo added 1.9% in pre-market trading after the beverage company reported fourth-quarter net income US$1.1 billion, or 65 cents a share, up 12% from $985 million, or 58 cents a share in the year-ago period.

GlaxoSmithKline rose in London after it said fourth-quarter earnings advanced 45%, but European stock markets declined overall.

The UK FTSE 100 index dipped 0.5%. Asian stocks ended mostly lower, with shares on the Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo falling 2.7% on profit-taking.

Toronto stocks sank Tuesday, one day after breaking the 12,000-point plateau and setting an all-time record close, as commodity prices dropped and investors moved to lock in profits.

The S&P/TSX composite index fell 263.23, or 2.18%, to 11,817.30.


The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index index finished down 64.44, or 2.47%, to 2,542.05.

In New York, the declines weren’t as severe as on Bay Street.

Google’s shares slid 4.5% to US$367.92 on Nasdaq, making it the biggest weight on that index.