Toronto stocks finished flat Friday, and volume was modest, as investors mostly overlooked economic news approaching the holiday weekend.

The S&P/TSX composite index edged up 0.02 of a point to close 11,936.68. Volume was 214 million.

The senior exchange will be closed for the August statutory holiday.

Eight of the 10 TSX main sub-groups were up, but the heavily weighted energy index fell 0.38%.

The front-month light, sweet crude oil contract ended down 70¢ at US$74.76 a barrel.

EnCana Corp. lost 26¢, or 0.43%, to $60.10.

The materials sector moved up 0.16%.

Gold for October delivery settled down 90¢ at US$649.60 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Kinross Gold’s second-quarter profit rose to US$65.6 million, from a year-earlier loss of $16.4 million. Kinross shares were up 37¢, or 2.80%, to $13.59.

Information Technology moved up 1.15%.

Open Text Corp. has agreed to buy rival Hummingbird Ltd. for about $489 million in cash, beating out an earlier, lower bid by a U.S. firm. Open Text gained 31¢, or 1.99%, to $15.85. Hummingbird lost 53¢, or 1.68%, to $31.04.

Nortel Networks was up 5¢, or 2.24%, to $2.28.

In economic news, Canada’s July unemployment rate rose to 6.4%, from 6.1% in June.

The Canadian dollar closed at US88.63 ¢, down 0.21 of a cent.

The S&P/TSX Venture Exchange index moved up 3.11, or 0.12%, to 2,646.62.

In New York, a rise in the U.S. jobless rate, indicating a slowdown in the economy, left investors taking profits earned earlier in the week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 2.24 points at 11,240.35. The S&P 500 ended down 0.91 point at 1,279.36, while the Nasdaq Composite ended 7.29 points lower at 2,085.04.

The U.S. jobless rate in July moved up to 4.8%, up from 4.6% in June. For the week, the Dow rose 0.2%, the S&P 500 gained 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite gave up 0.4%.