(Reuters) – Toronto's main stock index was set to open higher on Friday, as news that U.S. employment growth picked up speed in November boosted investor optimism and commodity prices.

FACTORS TO WATCH

* Canadian equity futures pointed to a higher open.

* U.S. stock index futures briefly extended their gains after the non-farm payroll report showed accelerated job creation in November and the unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped.

* European shares rose and were headed for their biggest weekly gain in three years on hopes of a bold solution to the euro zone debt crisis at a summit next week.

COMMODITY PRICE MOVES

* The Thomson Reuters-Jefferies CRB index, a global commodities benchmark, rose 0.34 percent in early trade.

* Oil rose above $109 a barrel as some evidence of a sustained recovery in the United States and rising tension over major oil exporter Iran countered concern about the euro zone debt crisis.

* Spot gold retreated on Friday from a brief fillip gained on the back of U.S. data that showed the economy added 120,000 jobs in November.

* Copper rose almost 2 percent and was on track for its first weekly gain in five weeks, carried further on the momentum of Wednesday's central banks move to boost liquidity.

CANADIAN STOCKS TO WATCH

* Research in Motion: The BlackBerry maker said it would record a pre-tax charge in its fiscal third-quarter to write down the value of its poorly received PlayBook tablet devices.

* Royal Bank of Canada: The bank's fourth-quarter profit from continuing operations rose 19 percent due to strong growth in mortgages and business loans, it said.

* Bank of Nova Scotia: The bank's fourth-quarter profit rose 10.7 percent as stronger wealth management and international banking income overshadowed weaker capital markets, it said. [ID:nL4E7N221A]

* Yukon-Nevada Gold Corp.: The company received a letter from the Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration saying its Jerritt Canyon mill is being put on safety-watch list.[ID:nL4E7N21UJ]

* Thomson Reuters Corp: The news and information company's CEO Tom Glocer is stepping down at the end of the year following a slump in the share price in recent months and will be replaced by COO James Smith.

* Oncolytics Biotech Inc.: The company said a mid-stage trial of its genetically engineered virus that aims to treat pancreatic cancer met its main study goal.

ANALYST RECOMMENDATIONS

Following is a summary of research actions on Canadian companies reported by Reuters.

* Bombardier Inc price target cut to C$7 from C$7.50 at CIBC

* Canadian Imperial Bank Of Commerce price target cut to C$82 from C$85 at National Bank Financial

* Lululemon rating raised to overweight from equalweight at Barclays

* Pembina Pipeline Corp price target raised to C$28.50 from C$28 at National Bank Financial

* Rio Alto Mining Ltd price target raised to C$5 from C$4.60 at CIBC

* West Fraser Timber Co Ltd rating cut to sector perform from outperform at RBC ($1= $1.01 Canadian)

(Reporting By Chandra Ramarathnam; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson)

NYSE Euronext released incorrect price information on more than 1,000 stocks and other securities late Thursday, causing some shares to show price swings that hadn’t really happened.

One example was Precision Castparts Corp., which at one point on Friday was supposedly down as much as 9.6 percent. But that was based on an incorrect closing price. In reality, its shares were down about 2.2 percent from their correct Thursday close.

“`Not fun’ would be a good description of my entire morning,” the company’s communications director, Dwight E. Weber, said.

The problem started at 7:27 p.m. Thursday when NYSE’s Arca platform sent incorrectly coded share price information. An e-mail sent to traders on Friday said the problem involved prices from aftermarket trades on Thursday that were incorrectly coded as if they had happened during regular trading that day. The e-mail says the mix-up potentially affected the closing price in some shares that trade on the New York Stock Exchange as well as its Arca platform.

The impact was on some stocks, exchange-traded funds, and mutual funds that started with the letters A though T. Symbols starting with U through Z were not affected.

NYSE spokesman Rich Adamonis said more than 1,000 ticker symbols were effected. He said the mix-up is still being investigated.

In the case of Precision Castparts, the erroneous price showed up as an artificially high closing trade — exaggerating the shares’ decline on Friday.

Some websites were still showing the wrong closing price for Precision Castparts early Friday afternoon. Adonis said websites have to manually update their databases with the corrected closing prices.