Oil prices touched a seven-week high at more than US$49 a barrel, sending Canadian markets higher in early trading Tuesday but pushing U.S. markets down sharply.

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 26.36 points or 0.29% at 9090.20 after gaining 6.68 points higher on Monday. The TSX Venture exchange is up 0.95 or 0.05% at 1798.55; it added 5.48 points Monday. . The Dow Jones Industrial Average was last down 40.43 points at 10510.11. The Nasdaq Composite Index dropped seven points, to 2081.05. The S&P 500 fell 2.81 points, to 1181.71. U.S. markets were closed Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday in the United States.

European indexes dropped in early action and Asian stock markets closed mostly lower, with prices slipping in Tokyo on profit-taking.

Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei Stock Average of 225 selected issues lost 63.84 points or 0.56% to 11423.26. The Nikkei fell on profit-taking as traders sold blue chip issues to take stock of surprisingly strong November machinery orders data.

In Hong Kong, the blue-chip Hang Seng Index slipped 17.43 points or 0.12% to 13604.22. The market was hit by selective profit-taking in the absence of any major positive news, brokers said.

The Canadian dollar is off 0.34 of a cent to US81.84¢.

In economic news, the composite index, an early measurement of how the economy is performing, advanced in December for the first time since May. “After a slowdown every month since June culminating in no change in November, the composite index advanced 0.2 per cent in December, Statistics Canada said Tuesday. Six of 10 components measured by the index rose in December, two more than in November.

Oil’s steady climb back to US$50 a barrel is expected to give investors some pause for thought as the shortened holiday trading week gets underway. Crude-oil futures topped US$49 a barrel in electronic trading, building on gains of almost 7% last week on forecasts for cold weather in the U.S. and amid ongoing output issues in key producing countries.

Tuesday’s economic data offered little in the way of cheer for U.S. investors.

Manufacturing activity in the New York area expanded at a slower pace in January, the New York Federal Reserve Bank said Tuesday. The bank’s Empire State Manufacturing index fell to 20.1 in January from 27.1 in December. The reading was lower than expected.