Wall Street stock futures were lower Friday after a U.S. government report showed a surprise jump in core inflation.

The consumer-price index was unchanged in April from March, the U.S. Labour Department said Friday, but the core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, jumped 0.3% last month, the largest increase since June 2008 and well above economists’ expectations for a 0.1% increase.

U.S. consumer prices fell 0.7% compared to one year ago, the largest 12-month decline since June 1955.

Here at home, manufacturing sales decreased 2.7% to $41.4 billion in March, reversing February’s gain, Statistics Canada said Friday. Most of the weakness could be found in the durable goods industries.

With this decrease, manufacturing sales have fallen almost 25% from their peak reached in July 2008, with most of the drop occurring between November 2008 and January 2009, StatsCan said.

Ahead of the Victoria Day long weekend, the Canadian dollar opened at US85.11¢, down 0.29 of a cent from Thursday’s close.

In commodities news, light, sweet crude fell 80¢ to US$57.82 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In overseas stock trading, Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 1.9% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index gained 1.5%.

In late morning trading, the UK’s FTSE 100 was down 0.1%, Germany’s DAX index was down 0.2%, and France’s CAC-40 was down 0.4%.

The Toronto Stock Exchange enjoyed broad-based gains on Thursday, finishing up 140 points after reaching gains exceeding 200 points earlier in the day.

The S&P/TSX composite index finished at 9,849.20, up 139.69 points, or 1.4%, after falling more than 350 points on Wednesday.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index finished at 1,060.52, up 7 points, or 0.7%.

In New York, the main stock market indices also advanced on Thursday despite news of a boost in jobless claims. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ended May 9 rose 32,000 to 637,000, the Labor Department reported, marking the highest level of claims since mid-April.

The Dow Jones industrial average added 46.43 points, or 0.6%, to close at 8,330.

The S&P 500 index advanced for the first time in four days, gaining 9.15 points, or 1%, to end at 893.07.

The Nasdaq composite index gained 25.02 points, or 1.5%, to finish at 1,689.

IE