Stocks will likely open weaker Friday after a government report showed that U.S. consumer inflation surged by the largest amount in more than two years in November.

The consumer price index rose 0.8% last month, the biggest one-month increase since a 1.2% surge in September 2005, the U.S. Labor Department reported today.

Core inflation, which excludes volatile energy and food prices, also accelerated in November, rising by 0.3%, the biggest increase in 10 months.

Here at home, Statistics Canada reported that capacity utilization by Canadian industries fell for the second consecutive quarter between July and September. Every sector, with the exception of mining, reduced its industrial capacity utilization in the third quarter.

Separately, StatsCan said national net worth reached $5.4 trillion by the end of the third quarter, or $163,700 per capita. National net worth expanded by a modest $63 billion in the quarter. This represented an increase of 1.2% over the second quarter, the weakest growth in eight quarters.

The Canadian dollar opened at US98.02¢ this morning, down just one one-hundredth of a cent.

In banking news, U.S. giant Citigroup said late Thursday that it will bring US $49 billion of assets from several structured investment vehicles (SIVs) onto its balance sheet in a move that could hurt the firm’s capital base and potentially sound the death knell for an industrywide move for a rescue fund for SIVs.

Light sweet crude oil rose 72¢ to US$92.97 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average slipped 0.14%.

And in early trading, the FTSE 100 rose 0.05% in Lodnon, Germany’s DAX index rose 0.03% and France’s CAC-40 fell 0.38%.

On Thursday, worries about how an economic slowdown would affect demand for commodities helped send the Toronto stock market lower.

The S&P/TSX composite index was down 62.13 points, or 0.45%, to close at 13,747.25.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index dropped 40.95 points, or 1.5%, to 2,694.63.

In New York, markets closed mixed.

The Dow Jones industrial average advanced 44.06 points, or 0.33%, to 13,517.96. The S&P 500 added 1.82 points, or 0.12% to 1,488.41. The Nasdaq composite index fell 2.65 points, or 0.10% to 2,668.49.