North American markets are likely to open little changed Monday as oil prices ease off record highs from last week.

Crude-oil prices fell 33¢ to $66.53 a barrel in early trading Monday. The decline comes after oil prices rose about 7% last week, finishing with a 1.1% jump to $66.86 Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, a record settlement price.

In today’s economic news, Statistics Canada said soaring petroleum prices were more than enough to boost Canadian manufacturing shipments 0.5% to $50.3 billion in June. This was only the second increase in shipments in the last five months. Excluding the petroleum and coal products industry, manufacturing shipments edged down 0.1%.

Separately, the government agency said new motor vehicle sales climbed by 7.4% in June, boosted by dealer incentives.

The Canadian dollar opened at US83.54¢, down 0.01 of a cent. On Friday, the loonie rose 0.27 of a cent on an improving trade picture in Canada.

South of the border, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York today reported the Empire State Manufacturing index fell to 23.0 in August from 23.9 in July.

The drop was not as bad as feared. Economists had called for a fallback to a reading of 17.0 in August.

In business news, base metals producer Xstrata PLC is paying $2 billion for a 19.9% stake in Falconbridge Ltd. of Toronto, which recently merged with Noranda Inc. The seller is conglomerate Brascan Corp., with Xstrata paying $28 per share, Swiss-based Xstrata announced Monday.

Agilent Technologies agreed to sell its semiconductor business for US$2.66 billion and plans to spin off two other units as part of a restructuring designed to cut 1,300 jobs and lower costs by US$450 million.

In overseas trading, the benchmark Nikkei 225 index slipped 5.13 points, or 0.04%, to close at 12,256.55 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

In Hong Kong, the blue-chip Hang Seng Index rose 15.11 points, or 0.1%, to 15,466.06.

North American stocks fell Friday, as soaring oil prices and poor U.S. economic news spooked investors. The S&P/TSX composite index shed 16.79 points, or 0.16%, to finish 10,683.10.

For the week, the TSX benchmark index rose 1.2%.

The Canadian dollar rose 0.27 of a cent to close at US83.55¢.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index finished up 8.08, or 0.42%, to close 1,916.77.

In New York, markets were bearish on news of the U.S.’s ever-widening trade deficit.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 85.58, or 0.80%, to 10,600.31 after rising 91.48 Thursday. The tech-focused Nasdaq composite index dropped 17.65, or 0.8%, to 2,156.90. The S&P500 index fell 7.42, or 0.60%, to 1,230.39.

For the week, the Dow and S&P 500 closed in positive territory for the week. The Dow rose 0.4% and the S&P 500 advanced 0.32%.