Higher oil prices helped push back U.S. markets but could not pull their Canadian counterparts into the black Thursday morning.

At midday, the S&P/TSX was down 11.75 points or 0.13% to 8991.99, after gaining 12.79 points on Wednesday; the TSX Venture exchange was flat, 0.33 of a point or 0.02% to 1681.63.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrials had slipped 49.16 points or 0.47% to 10445.07 after rising 53.65 points the day before. The Nasdaq gave up 21.47 points or 1.01% at 2104.64 on top of Thursday’s 11.45-point decline and the S&P 500 declined 6.46 points or 0.55% at 1178.3.

The Canadian dollar continued to lose against the U.S. dollar two days after the Bank of Canada put interest rates on hold. It’s down 0.65 of a cent to US81.59¢.

Meanwhile, the price of crude oil for January delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange was 55¢ higher at US$42.49 a barrel on concerns that OPEC will announce production cuts during the cartel’s meeting Friday in Cairo.

On Bay Street, the TSX energy sub-group advanced 0.90%, while gold issues were 0.39% and technology stocks gained 0.24%. But the market as a whole was held back by losses among the heavily weighted financial group, which was down 0.74%.

On Wall Street, an unexpected jump in unemployment claims added to the damage from rising oil prices. Tech stocks tumbled on poor sales forecasts from a pair of semiconductor makers.

The surprise climb in first-time jobless claims — which rose by 8,000 to 357,000 last week — added to lingering concerns about the job market from Friday’s disappointing job creation report. Wall Street had expected the Labor Department to report just 335,000 new claims.

Overseas, Tokyo’s Nikkei Stock Average of 225 issues dropped 164.74 points, or The Hang Seng Index dropped 13.5 points, or 0.1% to 14008.82.

London’s FTSE 100 declined 27 points at 4,676.9.

Frankfurt’s DAX 30 lost 66.25 points to 4,135.1 while the Paris CAC 40 was off 36.35 points at 3,738.69.