An increase in gold prices helped offset another decline in oil prices and allow Bay Street to finish the week on a positive note. Wall Street, meanwhile, carried the crude price drop to another gain, ending a solid week.

At close, the S&P/TSX was up 17.17 points or 0.19% at 9055.66, a 0.01% decline on the week. The TSX Venture exchange gained 13.67 points or 0.8% at 1732.44.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average ended up 7.09 points or 0.07% at 10592.21, putting in a 0.7% gain for the week. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 4.39 points or 0.2% at 2147.96, rising 2.2% on the week, and reached a new intra-day high of 2164, surpassing the previous high of 2153 hit on Jan. 26. The S&P 500 Index edged up 0.84 points or 0.07% to 1191.17.

The Canadian dollar rallied to close at US84.02¢, up 0.29 of a cent.

In Toronto, gold and energy stocks were the major movers on Friday. The TSX gold sector gained 0.53% as the price of bullion rose $5.30 to US$455.20 as the U.S. dollar hit another wave of selling during the session. The energy sub-index jumped 0.78% despite falling prices as oil company stocks proved attractive after successive days of losses.

The price of light, sweet crude declined 15¢ to US$43.10 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after tumbling almost US$6 a barrel over the last two days as warm weather helped preserve U.S. heating-oil inventories.

Financial stocks were slightly lower. The TSX sub-group lost 0.09%.

Bay Street seemed largely unmoved by Friday’s lower-than-expected jobless report that showed only a slight increase in the number of jobs created last month. Investors may have been looking ahead to the Bank of Canada’s interest rate announcement Tuesday. Thanks to the poor jobless report, most economists believe the bank will leave rates unchanged.

On Wall Street, stocks rallied despite new lows for the dollar and a weaker-than-expected November employment report fueled concern about the outlook for the U.S. economy.

The U.S. economy added just 112,000 jobs last month, far short of the 200,000 than had been generally expected. The U.S. Labour Department said the jobless rate edged down a 10th of a point to 5.4%. Economists suggested the report didn’t spell all bad news for stocks.

Tech stocks were active on U.S. markets. Intel Ltd. rose 5.3% to US$23.91 after the chip maker raised its fourth quarter sales outlook. IBM was also up, by 1.4%, on a report it is planning to sell its personal computer business.

In other market news, Merrill Lynch & Co., Morgan Stanley and RBC Capital Markets are among banks that will share about $62 million in fees for selling shares in Telus Corp., the biggest underwriting payday in Canada in more than two years.

The banks raised $2.24 billion selling a 20.5% stake in Telus for Verizon Communications Inc., the biggest phone company in the U.S. The sale of 73.5 million Telus shares was completed last night, the companies said in a statement Friday.

The banks will share fees of 2.75% of the value of the transaction, according to sale documents. It’s the biggest payday since August 2002, when BCE Inc., Canada’s biggest phone company, sold $2.08 billion in shares. Bankers shared fees of about $75 million on that sale.

Other banks selling shares in Vancouver-based Telus included CIBC World Markets, Citigroup Inc., Scotia Capital, TD Securities, HSBC Securities and J.P. Morgan Securities, according to sale documents. Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and RBC Capital will get almost three-quarters of the fees.