Wall Street futures are on the rise after recovering from early reaction to mixed results from Microsoft. Market watchers are expecting a positive start to the day as earnings reports start to ease up.

Late Thursday, Microsoft reported a drop in earnings for its fiscal second quarter. The company took a huge charge for stock-based compensation for employees. Earnings slipped to US$1.55 billion from US$1.87 billion, although revenue increased 19% as the company saw signs of improvement in corporate technology spending.

Statistics Canada is reporting good news for investors about jobs. Employment in Canada surged ahead during the last four months of 2003, says StatsCan. On average, just over 15.7 million people were employed last year, up 2.2%.

The European bourses are mixed at midday. Paris’s CAC40 is up 0.2%. Frankfurt’s DAX is 0.4% ahead. London’s FTSE 100 is down 0.3% due to fear of an imminent rise in British interest rates.

In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei gained 68.31 points, or 0.62%, finishing its Friday trading at 11,069.01. Prices edged higher on hopes that technology companies such as Advantest, Sony and Matsushita Electric, will report upbeat earnings next week. Markets were closed in Hong Kong for the lunar New Year holiday.

After markets closed Thursday, Royal Bank announced that it is issuing half a billion dollars’ worth of 10-year notes. The country’s largest bank said the notes bear interest at 3.96% until Jan. 27, 2009. After that at the three-month banker’s acceptance rate plus 1% until maturity in January 2014.

On Thursday, a 3.6% drop in the information technology sector pulled Toronto’s S&P/TSX composite index down 32.77 points to 8,589.11. Nortel Networks announced it is in talks to sell nearly all its remaining manufacturing operations to Flextronics of Singapore. The deal could see the company shed 2,500 jobs. Nortel shares faded 69 cents to $8.18.

The TSX Venture Exchange was up 2.29 at 1,815.41.

In New York, the Dow industrial average edged 0.44 of a point lower to 10,623.18. The Nasdaq composite index moved down 23.44 points to 2,119.01. The S&P 500 index declined 3.68 to 1,143.94.