Oil and gold stocks kept the Toronto Stock Exchange in the red Monday morning, while lower crude prices gave U.S. markets a slight boost.

At midday, the Toronto’s S&P/TSX composite index was off 6.89 points or 0.07% to 9684.55. The TSX Venture Exchange lost 8.72 points or 0.44% to 1979.47. Wall Street’s Dow industrial average advanced 17.21 points or 0.16% at 10791.57. The Nasdaq was up 1.47 points or 0.07% at 2043.07, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index added 3.04 points or 0.25% to 1203.12.

The Canadian dollar slid 0.24 of a cent to US82.71¢.

The price of light, sweet crude for April delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange dropped 18¢ to US$54.25 after the president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said oil-producing countries may decide to increase production at this week’s meeting in Iran.

On the TSX, gold stocks were down 1.52% as the price of gold slipped. It was off $4.90 to US$441.00 in London. Among the more active traders was Barrick Gold Corp., which slipped 1.28% or 33¢ to $25.47.

Energy stocks lost 0.33%, with Encana Corp. slipping 0.55% or 46¢ to $82.47. But Suncor Energy Inc. was up 0.6% or 28¢ to $47.05 after a report that the company will launch a $10-billion oilsands project Monday.

WestJet Airlines Ltd. was again the most active Toronto stock, up 78¢ or 5% to $16.38 on top of Friday’s 40% runup, in the wake of the collapse of rival Jetsgo, announced Friday. Air Canada’s holding company, Ace Aviation Holdings, was ahead 60¢ or 1.62% to $37.60.

In New York, U.S. stocks were slightly higher as oil prices eased, the dollar recovered some ground and merger and acquisition activity helped the tobacco and technology sectors.

Philip Morris, the tobacco arm of Altria Group Inc., is bidding US$5 billion to buy Indonesian tobacco firm PT Hanjaya Mandala Sampoerna Tbk. Altria was up about 0.7% at US$65.60.

International Business Machines Corp. was up about 0.3% to US$91.80 after it said it would buy Ascential Software Corp. for about $1.1 billion. Ascential was up 16.6% at $18.31.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. rose about 0.3% to US$51.76 after the retailer said on Saturday it expected sales at U.S. stores open at least a year to show an increase similar to or better than the 4.1% posted in February.

Overseas, London’s FTSE 100 index was down 22.10 points at 4,959.9. Frankfurt’s DAX 30 edged 1.97 points lower at 4,358.52 while the Paris CAC 40 was down 3.62 points at 4,045.56.

Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average of 225 selected issues declined 73.64 points, or 0.62%, to 11,850.25. In Hong Kong, the blue-chip Hang Seng Index climbed 15.92 points, or 0.11%, to 13,906.85.