U.S. stock futures were higher Friday after oil prices pulled back sharply the previous day and dipped under US$125 a barrel overnight.

Light sweet crude oil for July delivery went as low as $124.67 before pulling up to trade at $127.10, up 48¢ from Thursday’s settle.

Here at home, real gross domestic product edged down 0.1% in the first quarter of 2008, its first quarterly decline since the second quarter of 2003, Statistics Canada reported today.

StatsCan said the economy talled in the first quarter due to widespread cutbacks in manufacturing, most notably in motor vehicles. In addition, weather disruptions hampered economic activity in the quarter.

Federal and provincial finance ministers are meeting in Montreal. They are expected to discuss what fiscal response, if any, is needed to deal with the crisis in Canada’s manufacturing sector.

Separately, StatsCan reported that a second consecutive strong monthly increase in petroleum prices caused indexes for manufactured goods and raw materials prices to reach record levels in April.

The Canadian dollar opened at US101.10¢, unchanged from Thursday’s close.

South of the border, U.S. consumer spending increased mildly in April, but the gain was obliterated by the effect of rising prices, a government report showed.

Personal consumption increased by 0.2% compared to the month before, the U.S. Commerce Department said today. March spending had gone up an unrevised 0.4%.

The report showed personal income increased at a seasonally adjusted rate of 0.2% compared to the month before. Income rose 0.4% during March, revised from a previously estimated 0.3% gain.

Economists had forecast a 0.1% increase in personal income during April and a 0.2% climb in consumer spending.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average closed up 1.5% on Friday’s session to 14,338.54.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index advanced 0.6% to 24,533.12.

In midday trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.3%, Germany’s DAX advanced 0.6%, and France’s CAC-40 rose 0.6%.

Commodities stocks pulled the Toronto benchmark index down Thursday more than 100 points as the price of oil dropped more than $4.

The S&P/TSX Composite index closed down 111.45 points, or 0.76%, at 14,577.17, as seven of the ten major TSX groups gained today.

The financials sector chugged ahead steadily as a week of quarterly bank earnings comes to a close. The group closed up 1.27%.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index fell 19.65 points, or 0.74%, at 2628.60.

In New York, financials led a third day of market gains and the drop in oil prices also encouraged investors.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 52.19 points, or 0.41%, at 12,646.22.

The S&P 500 closed up 7.42 points, or 0.53%, to close at 1398.26.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq closed up 21.62 points, or 0.87%, to close at 2,508.32.