The Canadian Press

North American stock markets headed for an open well into positive territory Wednesday after chip giant Intel Corp. and American bank J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. delivered solid earnings reports.

The Toronto market will particularly benefit from another spike in oil prices.

The Dow Jones industrial futures jumped 113 points to 9,922, the Nasdaq futures advanced 23.8 points to 1,750.5, the S&P 500 rose 14.2 points to 1,083.

The November crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange was up 60¢ to US$74.75 a barrel on investor optimism crude demand will improve ahead of the Christmas shopping season.

A weak dollar was also bolstering crude prices.

The Canadian dollar continued to edge towards parity with the U.S. dollar, up another 0.65 cent to US97.13¢.

A weakening U.S. currency, higher commodity prices and positive Canadian economic data have pushed the dollar substantially higher lately. The loonie, which hasn’t matched the greenback since May 2008, gained more than 3¢ last week alone.

Intel reported after the market closed Tuesday that its profit and sales both dipped eight% in the July-September period as spending by corporations remained weak.

However, the results easily surpassed analyst forecasts, and Intel’s guidance for the October-December quarter of US$9.7 billion to US$10.5 billion in sales also topped projections.

And J.P. Morgan Chase, the first of the big U.S. banks to report third-quarter earnings, on Wednesday turned in a US$3.59 billion profit and said it roughly doubled the amount of money it set aside for failed home and credit card loans in the quarter.

In its earnings statement, the bank also described the near-term path of the economy as uncertain.

Both Intel and J.P. Morgan were up about 4% in pre-market trading in New York.

Stock markets were sluggish Tuesday following a disappointing decline in sales at drug company Johnson & Johnson that fanned fears that consumers and businesses are still curbing their spending.

Financial stocks in particular were pressured after analyst Meredith Whitney downgraded Goldman Sachs Group to neutral from buy.

Overseas, China’s Shanghai index rose 1.2%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index jumped 2%. Japan’s Nikkei index slipped 0.2%.

In afternoon trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 gained 1.88%, Germany’s DAX index jumped 2.34%, and France’s CAC-40 rallied 2%.

The price of gold eased from Tuesday’s latest record close, with the December bullion contract on the Nymex down $6.60 to US$1,058.40 an ounce. December copper rose three cents to US$2.82 a pound.