Stocks may are likely to open flat Thursday as the flow of first-quarter earnings reports on Wall Street continues, and traders digest an unexpected rise in U.S. jobless claims.

In this morning’s earnings news, Citigroup’s profit rose 29% in the first quarter, helped by a solid performance from its fixed-income trading business and a positive rate environment.

Canadian industrial prices move higher in February, contributing to a 0.8% rise in shipments to $45.8 billion, the highest level since September, Statistics Canada reported this morning.

The government agency said higher prices pulled up shipments of nondurable goods by 1.1% to $19.5 billion, the fourth increase in a row. Manufacturers of durable goods reported a 0.6% rise in shipments, making up some of the ground lost in January (-1.3%). In total, 12 of 21 industries accounting for 54.0% of total shipments, reported increases.

StatsCan said soaring demand for lumber and raw steel contributed to significant price gains in recent months. It added proposed cuts to crude oil production by OPEC have sent petroleum prices to near record levels.

StatsCan said that manufacturers seem to be holding their own, absorbing some of the higher costs attributed to the appreciating Canadian dollar.

South of the border, factories in New York state saw business conditions improve markedly in early April, more than reversing a slowdown suffered the month before, a survey said on Thursday.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said the business conditions index of its two-year-old Empire Manufacturing Survey rose to 36.05 in April from 25.33 in March, and back toward February’s record high of 42.05. Economists had expected a modest in the index to 26.8.

As for the U.S. labour market, today’s news wasn’t as good. The number of Americans filing initial claims for jobless aid rose a sharper than expected 30,000 last week, the biggest jump in over a year.

First-time claims for state unemployment benefits climbed to 360,000 in the week ended April 10, their highest level since early February, from a revised 330,000 in the prior week, the Labor Department said.

Wall Street economists had expected claims to rise to only 335,000 from the more than three-year low reached in the previous week.

In other business news, energy firm EnCana Corp. is offering US$2.7 billion for independent energy company Tom Brown Inc. of Denver. EnCana also announced a plan to sell “non-core” energy properties in Western Canada valued at US$1 billion to US$1.5 billion.

On Wednesday, the S&P/TSX composite index dropped 123.46 points to 8,640.12 after tumbling 135.19 points Tuesday.

The TSX Venture Exchange lost 24.66 points to 1,788.89.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average came back from a 58-point deficit late in the session to close 3.33 points lower at 10,377.95. The Nasdaq composite index was 5.23 points lower at 2,024.85 while the S&P 500 slipped1.26 points to 1,128.18.

Markets were in negative territory from the start after new figures showed American consumer prices rose by 0.5% in March. Markets had expected a 0.3% boost.