Source: The Canadian Press

The Toronto stock market headed for a higher open Monday with shares in Potash Corp. (TSX:POT) up in pre-market trading in New York as the company officially rejected a hostile US$38.6 billion takeover bid from Australian miner BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP).

Potash Corp. also said it expects “superior offers or other alternatives” to emerge and that it’s been in touch with a number of third parties “who have expressed an interest in considering alternative transactions.”

Potash Corp. shares rose 1.25% to US$149.67.

BHP Billiton has said it would take the bid directly to the shareholders of the Saskatchewan company.

The Canadian dollar rose 0.38 of a cent to 95.73 cents US.

U.S. futures pointed to a positive start to the trading week amid other merger and acquisition activity.

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP (TSX:BIP.UN) has announced plans to takeover Prime Infrastructure (ASX:PIH) in a deal that values the Australian company at US$1.4 billion. Brookfield, which already owns 40% of Prime, says the deal will create a leading global infrastructure company.

HSBC Holdings PLC is in talks to buy a controlling stake in Nedbank Group Ltd. of South Africa from Old Mutual PLC for as much as US$6.8 billion.

And Hewlett-Packard is making a bid of US$24 per share for data storage provider 3Par just a week after rival Dell agreed to acquire the company. Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc. both have been looking to expand from personal computers over the past few years in a search for bigger profits. HP’s bid tops Dell’s offer of US$18 per share.

Potential acquisitions are a sign companies are confident the economy will grow and business will improve in the coming quarters.

The Dow Jones industrial futures were up 42 points to 10,244, the Nasdaq futures gained 11.75 points to 1,837.25 while the S&P 500 futures were up 6.5 points to 1,076.8.

The TSX could find support from the energy sector as the October crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange gained 50 cents to US$74.32 a barrel.

Other commodity prices were soft with September copper on the Nymex unchanged at US$3.29 a pound while December gold in New York dipped 50 cents to US$1,228.30 an ounce.

North American markets put in a mixed performance last week. The TSX gained 1.68% but that was largely on the back of the resource sector as PotashCorp shares surged in the wake of BHP Billiton’s Potash bid. The base metals sector gained 1.74% on hopes that other companies could be ripe for a takeover with a fat share price premium.

But overall sentiment was weak and the Dow Jones industrials fell 0.86% as economic data Thursday, particularly a rise in jobless insurance claims to past the half-million mark, deepened the belief that the American economic recovery is faltering.

During this week, U.S. investors will get data on the housing market, durable goods orders, consumer sentiment and a revision to the second-quarter gross domestic product later this week.

In Canada, Statistics Canada is expected to report Tuesday that retail sales in June rose by 0.3%, following a 0.2% dip in May.

Investors will also start taking in earnings reports from the big Canadian banks. Four of them report fiscal third-quarter results this week, with Bank of Montreal kicking off on Tuesday.

The five big financials raked in a collective $5.01 billion in second-quarter profits — down from $5.09 in the first quarter — and analysts think they will be hard pressed to turn in similar earnings this time out.

In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average shed 0.7%.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index fell less than 0.1% as commodity stocks advanced on hopes that a proposed mining profits tax would be dropped if the opposition Liberal Party forms the new government. National elections on Saturday gave neither of the major political parties an outright majority in parliament.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.6% and the Shanghai Composite index eased 0.1%.

European bourses advanced amid data showing that the economic recovery in the eurozone was losing momentum.

The monthly eurozone purchasing managers index — a gauge of business activity — dropped to 56.1 in August from 56.7 in July. The drop was bigger than anticipated in the markets and shows that growth, though relatively healthy, is slowing — anything above 50 indicates expansion.

London’s FTSE 100 index gained 0.96%, the Frankfurt DAX was up 0.52% while the Paris CAC 40 was ahead 0.97%.