North American markets appear headed for a rocky start Monday as Hurricane Katrina, a category four storm, barreled toward U.S. oil and refinery operations in the Gulf of Mexico, temporarily boosting oil prices above US$70 a barrel.

Light, sweet crude for October delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange jumped as much as $4.67 a barrel in electronic trading to hit a high of US $70.80 a barrel during the Asian trading day, before pulling back to US$68.95 a barrel by midday in Europe.

On Friday, U.S. light crude settled down $1.36 at US$66.13 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The Canadian dollar opened at US83.75¢ Monday morning, up 0.33 of a cent from Friday’s close at US83.42¢.

There are no major economic releases from Canada or the United States today.

European markets were just into the red Monday, with Germany’s DAX off 22.52 points at 4,761.28 and the Paris-based CAC 40 down 11.52 at 4,331.18 points. London’s financial markets were closed for a U.K. public holiday.

Overnight in Asia, the Japanese Nikkei 225 index lost 129.65 points, or 1.04% to close at 12,309.83 points on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

In Hong Kong, the blue-chip Hang Seng Index fell 145.92 points, or 0.97%, at 14,836.97.

On Friday, the S&P/TSX composite index fell 54.86 points, or 0.52%, to close at 10,484.07.

For the week, the benchmark index gave up 12.08 points.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index finished down 2.59 points, or 0.14%, at 1,914.34.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 53.34, or 0.51%, to 10,397.29. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index dipped 7.29, or 0.6%, to 1,205.10, and the Nasdaq composite index dropped 13.60, or 0.64%, to 2,120.77.

For the week, the Dow lost 1.53%, the S&P fell 0.69% and the Nasdaq dropped 1.2%.