The Toronto stock market was set to head higher Friday with investor sentiment helped along by a commitment by Japan’s central bank to carry on with its extensive stimulus package longer than planned.

The Canadian dollar continued to pile up losses for a third day, down 0.28 of a cent to 89.82 cents US as Statistics Canada said that December retail sales tumbled 1.8 per cent from November. Economists had expected a drop of just 0.4 per cent.

The agency also reported that the Canadian consumer price index was up 1.5 per cent in January compared to a year earlier. That was slightly higher than the 1.3 per cent rise economists expected.

U.S. futures were higher as the Dow Jones industrial futures gained 22 points to 16,122, the Nasdaq futures were up 6.8 points to 3,678.3 while the S&P 500 futures climbed 3.5 points to 1,839.75.

The Bank of Japan’s minutes of its January policy meeting were released Friday. Board members said that in order to avoid any misunderstanding about the BOJ’s program of ambitious monetary easing, the bank needed “to provide a clear explanation that it did not strictly set this to end in two years.”

As part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic revival strategy, the central bank in April last year announced a policy overhaul that aimed to double the money supply and achieve two per cent inflation within about two years

The Toronto stock market registered a solid 91-point gain Thursday, helped along by strong earnings from grocer Loblaw (TSX:L) and coffee and doughnut chain Tim Hortons (TSX:THI).

Also, a survey by Markit found U.S. factory activity this month grew at the fastest pace in nearly four years. The report helped investors shrug off earlier concerns about China after a separate report found manufacturing in the world’s second-biggest economy contracted for a second straight month in February.

The April crude contract in New York declined 32 cents to US$102.43 a barrel.

March copper was unchanged at US$3.28 a pound while April gold gained $6.60 to US$1,323.50 an ounce.

In earnings news Friday, conglomerate Onex Corp. (TSX:OCX) posted a US$223 million net loss in the fourth quarter, bringing the total loss for 2013 to US$813 million. About $750 million of the annual loss was attributed to fair-value adjustments in favour of its partners. In addition, its aerostructures division had a loss related to long-term contracts.

Thompson Creek Metals Co. Inc. (TSX:TCM) had an adjusted net loss of US$28.5 million or 17 cents per share, missing forecasts for a loss of three cents a share. Revenue was also below expectations, at US$117.1 million compared with the general estimate of $123.77 million. The Denver-based company has two operating mines in British Columbia and other Canadian development properties.

Earlier in Asia, Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed 2.9 per cent higher, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.8 per cent and the Shanghai Composite Index dropped 1.2 per cent.

European markets were higher as London’s FTSE 100 index and Frankfurt’s DAX gained 0.14 per cent while the Paris CAC 40 rose 0.24 per cent.