TORONTO – The Toronto market looked set to open little changed Thursday as traders looked to a mixed slate of earnings news from telecom and tech and took in positive U.S. jobs data.

The major Canadian earnings report of the morning came from telecom giant BCE, which posted adjusted net earnings of $540 million, an increase of 16.4 per cent from a year earlier, or 70 cents a share, beating estimates by a penny. BCE also upped its dividend six per cent to $2.47 a year and forecast adjusted earnings growth of three per cent during 2014.

The Canadian dollar was down 0.03 of a cent to 90.38 cents US as Statistics Canada reported the trade deficit widened from $1.5 billion in November to $1.7 billion in December.

U.S. futures were positive as jobless insurance claims, viewed as a proxy for layoffs, fell by a greater than expected 20,000 to 331,000 for last week.

The data is coming out a day before the release of the U.S. government’s employment report for January. Economists expect that 183,000 jobs were created during the month following a meagre 57,000 gain in December that was largely blamed on the weather.

Canadian employment data for January also comes out Friday with economists looking for a print of about 20,000 jobs.

The Dow Jones industrials ahead 76 points to 15,429 amid earnings misses at Twitter and General Motors, the Nasdaq futures gained 20 points to 3,465.5 and the S&P 500 futures added 9.5 points to 1,753.5.

Twitter stock plunged 23 per cent in pre-market trading as it beat earnings and revenue expectations in its first quarter as a public company. But compared with the end of the third quarter, Twitter’s user growth is slowing down. The company added just nine million new monthly users, a slowdown from the previous three quarters.

GM shares fell about three per cent in pre-market trading as earnings ex-items came in at 67 cents a share, far below the 88 cents expected. Revenue of US$40.5 billion missed forecasts of $41.075 billion.

It has been a volatile week for markets after surveys earlier this week showed the U.S. and Chinese manufacturing sectors expanding at a slower pace. The data helped raise concerns about whether economic problems cropping up in emerging markets can be contained.

In other corporate news, the British government says that it intends to award a US$1.6-billion contract to Canadian transport giant Bombardier (TSX:BBD.B) to supply trains and a depot for London’s transportation system. The trains will be built in England.

On the commodity markets, March crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange moved 76 cents higher to US$989.14 a barrel.

March copper was up two cents to US$3.21 a pound while April bullion gained $1.30 to US$1,258.20 an ounce.

Overseas, European bourses were positive as the European Central Bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 0.25 per cent, despite weak economic growth and low inflation.

London’s FTSE 100, Frankfurt’s DAX and the Paris CAC 40 were all up about one per cent.