Toronto stocks closed lower Friday, ending a bleak week with yet further losses, as sinking commodity prices weighed down the wider market.

The S&P/TSX composite index moved down 25.45, or 0.21%, to 11,869.59. It was the third day of declines, but the fall was much smaller than in the previous two days.

The market lost 275 points for the shortened week. The market was closed on Monday for Labour Day.

Seven of the 10 TSX main sub-groups were down, with the energy index fell 1.48%.

Light, sweet crude for October delivery dropped $1.07, or 1.6%, to close at US$66.25 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its lowest close since March.

Nexen Inc. lost 96¢, or 1.54%, to $61.48.

The materials index gave up 0.84% and the gold sub-index 1.85%.

The December futures contract fell $7.60 to end at US$617.30 an ounce.

Bema Gold Corp. declined 13¢, or 2.23%, to $5.71.

The information technology index was up 1.79%. Research in Motion was up $2.37, or 2.72%, to $89.58.

Statistics Canada reported the unemployment rate at 6.5% in August up from 6.4 per cent in July.

The Canadian dollar was down 0.79 of a cent to US89.27¢.

The S&P/TSX Venture Exchange index fell 20.72, or 0.76%, to 2,717.82.

In New York, markets closed Friday on a high note, erasing some of the losses posted earlier in the week, as investors cheered lower oil prices.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 60.67 points to 11,392.11. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 10.50 points at 2,165.79. The S&P 500 Index climbed 4.90 points to 1,298.92.

For the week, the Dow Jones fell 0.6%, the Nasdaq declined 1.25%, and the S&P500 gave up 0.9%.