Stocks open higher

NEW -- Stocks opened higher Friday following a better-than-expected rise in profits at Research in Motion Ltd. and on word that Merrill Lynch might have lined up a big cash infusion from a Singapore fund.

Research in Motion said late Thursday its fiscal third-quarter profit more than doubled on strong demand for its BlackBerry smart phones. The results gave Wall Street hope that the technology sector has further to climb and that consumers and businesses are still spending.

Then on Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Merrill Lynch & Co., facing hefty writedowns due to losing bets on subprime mortgages, may get a capital infusion of as much as $5 billion. The money is expected to come from Singapore state-owned investment agency Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd., a fund that in late July said it would buy a 1.77 percent stake in Barclays PLC for $2 billion.

Sovereign wealth funds have been providing troubled U.S. and European banks with much-needed cash. Over the past month, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority bought a stake in Citigroup Inc. for $7.5 billion; the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. invested $9.75 billion in UBS AG; and this week China Investment Corp. infused Morgan Stanley with $5 billion.

Meanwhile, a Commerce Department report on personal spending brought investors mixed news. Spending rose by 1.1 percent in November, the largest amount in 3ˆ½ years, but the Fed's preferred inflation measure -- the year-over-year core personal consumption expenditures deflator -- rose to 2.2 percent. That's above the Fed's comfort level of 1 percent to 2 percent, and could prevent the central bank from making another rate cut to spur economic growth.

In the first minutes of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 121.12, or 0.91 percent, to 13,366.76.

Broader stock indicators rose. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 14.61, or 1.00 percent, to 1,474.73, and the Nasdaq composite index advanced 34.05, or 1.29 percent, to 2,674.91.