The Canadian Press

North American markets appeared set to fizzle out Friday at the end of a winning week, as investors reassess a spate of enthusiastic gains in recent days.

The U.S. dollar is being watched closely after recovering some of its recent losses, following a reassurance by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke that the U.S. central bank will be able to rein in its extraordinary stimulus measures when the time is right. The comments Thursday night calmed some of investors’ fears about inflation, which can be triggered by a falling dollar.

Ahead of the market open, Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 28 points to 9,719. Standard & Poor’s 500 index futures lost one point, or 0.1%, to 1,062.80, while Nasdaq 100 index futures fell five points, or 0.3%, to 1,711.50.

In economic data, Statistics Canada reported the unemployment rate fell for the first time in almost a year in September to 8.4% as the economy created jobs for the second consecutive month.

The market is also awaiting data on the U.S. trade deficit, which is expected to have widened in August. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect the deficit rose to US$33 billion, a 3.3% increase from the July level, which was the highest in six months.

The lower U.S. dollar had sent many investors running for cover into commodities futures on Thursday, and helped boost the price of oil and gold contracts.

By Friday morning, key futures had moved lower with the November crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange trading down 64¢ to US$71.05 a barrel.

The December gold contract slipped US$7.30 to US$1,049 an ounce.

The Canadian dollar was at US95.68¢, rising 0.64 of a cent.

On Thursday, the S&P/TSX composite index closed up 134.63 points to 11,484.51, extending into its fourth consecutive session of gains.

In Canadian corporate news, life sciences company MDS Inc. (TSX: MDS) said it will sell its 600 employee Central Labs operation for $8 million to $12 million to Czura Thornton, a private investment group based in Jersey, Channel Islands.

Overseas, Shanghai’s main index climbed 4.8%, while Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 1.9%. In late morning trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 and Germany’s DAX index each lost 0.1% and France’s CAC-40 fell 0.2%.