Wall Street futures are up slightly following the release of good news on wholesale prices in the U.S. Canadian investors are waiting to see who will be sworn in as Canada’s new finance minister. Early reports are suggesting that western MP, Ralph Goodale, will get the nod.

The new minister will be facing the impact of a higher Canadian dollar on the country’s trade surplus. Statistics Canada is reporting this morning that the nation’s trade surplus with the rest of the world took a hit of almost a $1 billion and dropped to $5.1 billion. Canadian companies exported $32.3 billion in merchandise in October, says StatsCan. That’s a 4.2% decline, which erased most of September’s recovery. Exports were higher than in August, but otherwise at their lowest level since October 1999. Imports fell 1.7% to $27.2 billion.

The good news from StatsCan is that labour productivity in Canada’s business sector increased 0.7% in the third quarter compared with the second, the strongest quarterly gain in more than a year. This increase put an end to a lacklustre performance during the last five quarters, when productivity ranged between a gain of 0.3% and a decline of 0.5%.

In the U.S., futures traders are reacting positively to news that wholesale prices fell for the first time in six months in November, suggesting that recent growth isn’t fanning inflation.

The U.S. Labor Department says the producer-price index for finished goods declined 0.3% last month, as the price of food, energy and automobiles slumped. PPI rose 0.8% in October. The “core” index, which excludes food and energy items, dropped 0.1% last month, the first decline since June.

Contrary to the trend in Canada, the U.S. deficit in international trade of goods and services is on the increase. It jumped to $41.77 billion in October from a revised $41.34 billion in September, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

The morning’s other economic release will be the University of Michigan consumer confidence survey.

In Asia, markets benefited from Thursday’s gains on Wall Street. Tokyo’s Nikkei average rose 94.52 points to 10,169.66. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index rose 39.84 points to 12,594.42, its highest close since July 16, 2001.

In London, at midday, the FTSE 100 index is up 0.4%, adding 17.8 points to 4,349.1. The Frankfurt DAX is up 0.9% and the Paris CAC40 is up 0.6%.

Strong performances in the gold, information technology, and health care sectors lifted Toronto stocks to a higher close Thursday. The S&P/TSX composite index rose 69.06 points to finish at 7,956.18.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average closed above 10,000 for the first time in nearly 19 months.

The Dow rose 86.30 points to finish the day at 10,008.16. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index climbed 37.67 points, or almost 2%, to close at 1,942.32. The broader S&P 500 added 12.17 points to finish at 1,071.21