With their U.S. counterparts closed, Canadian stock markets seemed to be in idling mode Friday morning.

Toronto’s S&P/TSX composite index was ahead 6.06 points or 0.07% at 8348.31 after moving 28.37 points higher Thursday. The junior TSX Venture Exchange was treading water, down 0.84 points or 0.05% at 1552.10.

Trading is light and volume on the TSX is a near-anemic 35 million shares. Advancers and decliners were about even.

The rest of the day is expected be quiet as well with New York markets closed for the funeral of former president Ronald Reagan.

The Canadian dollar was down despite a solid reading on the Canadian economy. The loonie gave up 0.17 of a cent to US73.33¢ even as Statistics Canada reported that a surge in exports led to the Canadian trade balance hitting its second-highest level ever in April. The surplus hit $7.6 billion, $1 billion less than the all-time record set in January 2001.

The figure is also much higher than the $6.3-billion surplus that economists had expected. Exports ran up 4.4 per cent to $36.6 billion in April, growing at over six times the pace of imports.

European indices declined in early trading and Asian stock markets closed mostly lower, with the key index in Tokyo slipping on concerns that China could move rapidly to slow its booming economy, traders said.

Tokyo’s Nikkei Stock Average of 225 stocks fell 49.15 points or 0.42% to 11526.82 points. Strong economic data from China prompted Japanese stocks to fall, traders said.