North American stocks look set to open lower Friday, as investors south of the border turn their attention to retail shopping one day after the Thanksgiving holiday.

U.S. retailers will be in focus on the key shopping day of the year, called Black Friday. Retailers can ring up as much as 70% of their annual sales in the November-December stretch, and some make as much as 50% of their annual profit in that short period.

The U.S. stock market will close early today at 13:00 ET.

In other business news, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan said late Thursday it will spend US$2.4 billion to buy four North American marine container terminals, including two in British Columbia, from a Hong Kong-based shipping company. The two Canadian container terminals are at Vancouver and nearby Delta, B.C. The other two are near New York City.

BCE Inc. is following through on its previously announced plan to dedicate about $1 billion from the sale of non-core assets to reduce its debt. The company said late Thursday that it will redeem all of its Series B notes, which have $1.05 billion in principle maturing on Oct. 30, 2007.

The Canadian dollar opened at US88.25¢, up 0.64 of a cent.

Crude-oil prices rose Friday after a deadly attack on an oil facility in Nigeria. Light sweet crude for January delivery rose 66¢ to US$59.84 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by early afternoon in Europe.

Overseas, Germany’s DAX 30 was down 1.4% aWhile Asian markets ended mixed.

Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 179.63 points, or 1.13%, to finish at 15,734.60 points on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Japanese markets were closed Thursday for a national holiday.

In Hong Kong, shares ended flat as property issues pulled back after a strong rally in the previous session. The blue-chip Hang Seng Index fell 5.02 points, or 0.03%, to 19,260.3.

On Thursday, a solid performance by mining and banking issues led a broad-based rally on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The S&P/TSX composite index gained 87.92 points, or 0.8%, at to close at 12,644.90 – a new record.

The benchmark index also set a fresh intraday high of 12,650.33.

All of the TSX index’s 10 main groups were higher.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index gained 25.05 points, or 0.94%, to finish at 2,691.67.