IBT Staff Reporter

The Dow and S&P were little changed on Friday, following three days of gains as investors looked ahead to the start of earnings season while Google helped keep the Nasdaq in modestly positive territory.

Mid- and small-capitalization stocks often serve as a leading indicator for the direction of the U.S. economy. So what does it say that they are down roughly 15 to 20 percent?

Canada's economy created far more jobs than expected in June in a surprising sign of strength after a raft of discouraging data, fueling expectations the central bank will hike interest rates again this month.

U.S. 30-year mortgage rates dropped to a new record low in the past week, according to a survey released on Thursday by Freddie Mac FMCC.OB, as concerns mounted about the economic recovery.

Wholesales sales fell unexpectedly for the first time in more than a year, lifting inventories to their highest level in 11 months, a government report showed on Friday.

Stocks rose slightly on Friday as Wall Street looked for a fourth straight session of gains ahead of the start of earnings season next week.

Oil edged up toward $76 a barrel on Friday and was heading for a weekly gain of more than 4 percent, after a drop in U.S. inventories and positive economic indicators lifted sentiment across markets. European shares drifted higher on Friday for a fourth straight session, supported by soothing U.S. jobless and retail sales numbers. Wall Street rose in early trade, while the euro slipped off two-month highs against the dollar.

Palladium, which was expected to gain this year due to the high growth in auto ales in China and India, may in fact decline by 12 per cent to about $395 an ounce in the coming weeks.Palladium is hugely used in catalytic converters in cars. Palladium has been the worst-performing precious metal last quarter.

Google Inc said on Friday that the Chinese authorities had renewed its license to operate a website, averting a potential shutdown of its flagship search page in the world's biggest Internet market.

Stock index futures pointed to a flat open in what could be a volatile session on Friday after Wall Street recorded three straight winning days and as investors braced for the start of earnings season next week.

European finance ministers will shift their focus next week onto a possible need for their banks to raise more capital and on who will cover any shortfalls exposed by stress tests -- a sum which Credit Suisse reckons could total 90 billion euros ($114 billion).

BC Partners and Silver Lake are set to buy U.S. healthcare services firm MultiPlan, the private equity firms said on Friday, in the year's largest secondary buyout worth about $3.1 billion.

Bank-to-bank euro borrowing costs extended their march higher on Friday as the market repriced those rates following the recent drop in excess money market liquidity when 442 billion euros of one-year loans expired.

Stock index futures edged higher on Friday after recording three straight winning sessions and as investors braced for the start of earnings season next week.

Google Inc Chief Executive Eric Schmidt rejected any notion that Apple Inc or Facebook presented a threat to the web search leader's business.

Ever since Nintendo launched the Wii, gamers have been interacting with characters and working out with virtual trainers in titles like Electronic Arts' EA Sports Active or Ubisoft's Your Shape.

Oil rose toward $76 a barrel on Friday, heading for its biggest weekly gain since May, after a drop in U.S. inventories and positive economic indicators lifted risk appetite and sentiment across markets. European stocks were up following a rally in Asia, and the euro held near a two-month high, following a fall in U.S. jobless claims and an upbeat view of the euro zone's recovery from the European Central Bank.

Stock index futures edged higher on Friday after Wall Street recorded third straight winning sessions and as investors braced for the start of earnings next week.

First-half performance figures are showing the same pattern for hedge funds as for more mainstream investors -- the most successful were in fixed income, the least successful in stocks.

Google Inc, which is at the heart of a controversy over its data collection methods, has decided to resume gathering images in four countries for its Street View mapping service.

BC Partners and Silver Lake are set to buy healthcare services firm Multiplan for $3.1 billion in the largest secondary buyout of the year, a source familiar with the situation said on Friday.

Fujitsu Ltd, Japan's biggest IT services provider, said on Friday it plans to boost investment in cloud computing by 54 percent this year to beef up its operations in one of the IT sector's hottest areas.

European regulators are launching a new probe into the safety of GlaxoSmithKline Plc's diabetes pill Avandia, adding to pressure on a medicine that already faces a grilling from U.S. experts next week.

If bullion investors thought the recent move by China to free yuan from dollar will help gold in a big way, think again. China seems to be not much interested in dumping gold forever, even though Beijing is ready to give flexibility to yuan.

Gold held near $1,200 an ounce on Friday as some buyers were tempted back to the market by the metal's fall to six-week lows as the dollar softened, but recovering risk appetite is undermining its haven appeal.

The Obama administration declined to label China a currency manipulator in a long-delayed report on Thursday, spurring fresh calls from U.S. lawmakers for tough new steps to pressure Beijing. Some lawmakers claim China's yuan is misaligned in value, distorting trade and stealing U.S. jobs. A key senator pledged to press ahead with a bill threatening China with tariffs on some of its products unless there is significant movement upward in the yuan.

The euro held near two-month highs on Friday, while the yen was under pressure as investors cut long positions and veered toward high-yielding currencies on improving risk appetite. The euro was little changed on the day at $1.2694, after advancing nearly 0.5 percent on Thursday and jumping more than 1 percent against the low-yielding yen on a break of significant resistance that took it as far as $1.2713.

Oil rose 0.5 percent on Friday, heading for its biggest weekly gain since May, after data showed robust U.S. demand growth and falling inventories, while positive economic indicators lifted sentiment across markets.

Equity funds worldwide suffered more than $11 billion of net outflows in the first week of July, while money market funds saw the biggest inflows in 18 months amid fears of a double-dip recession, EPFR Global said on Friday.