The Toronto stock market looked ready to go slightly higher early Friday as strength from the U.S. earnings weighed against the fast approaching deadline for Cyprus to deal with its debt troubles.

The Canadian dollar rose 0.03 of a cent to 97.66 cents US.

Dow Jones industrial futures were up 39 points at 14,386, while the broader S&P futures added 3.8 points to 1,542.90 and the Nasdaq futures rose 7.5 points to 2,777.25.

Darden Restaurants, which owns the Olive Garden and Red Lobster chains, beat Wall Street expectations on earnings for the quarter Friday, as did luxury retailer Tiffany. And Nike said late Thursday that third-quarter profits spiked 55%.

In Europe, Cyprus has again delayed a meeting in which parliament is due to discuss how its banks and government can be recapitalized after earlier this week rejecting a plan — backed by European leaders — to tax depositors.

Cyprus’s banks have now been closed for a week and the European Central Bank has threatened to cut off an emergency program supporting them if a solution is not found by Monday.

Canadian financial stocks will also be in the spotlight after Finance Minister Jim Flaherty unveiled tighter rules for mortgages in Thursday’s federal budget.

The budget said the government will restrict banks’ ability to insure conventional mortgages, those with over 20% householder equity, to only those used in Canada Mortgage and Housing securitization programs. As well, it said it will prohibit the use of government-backed insurance — both on conventional and heavily leveraged mortgages — as collateral if they are not sponsored by CMHC.

In commodities, the April crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange jumped 40 cents to US$92.85 a barrel.

The May copper contract gained 2.7 cents to US$3.45 a pound and April gold bullion fell $9.50 to US$1,604.30 an ounce.

Britain’s FTSE 100 was off 0.1% at 6,381.66, Germany’s DAX lost 0.3% to 7,906.76 and France’s CAC-40 shed 0.6% to 3,752.79.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 plummeted 2.4% to close at 12,338.53, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.5% to 22,115.30, while South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.1% at 1,948.71. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan and Indonesia also fell.