Photo: The Canadian Press

TORONTO — Canada’s largest stock index ended a down week in the black Friday as gold pushed the loonie and the materials sector higher and oil endured its sixth consecutive week of declining prices.

The January crude contract was unchanged at US$56.68 per barrel Friday but was down almost six per cent for the week as it ended an unprecedented 12-day run of falling prices. West Texas Intermediate was down 26 per cent from its peak in early October.

The December natural gas contract was up 23.4 cents at US$4.27 per mmBTU.

While some small energies company moved up, the energy sector on the TSX was down half a per cent on the day as bigger names weakened with the West Canadian Select closing marginally higher from its low.

“So I think it’s just a question of investors wrapping their head around Canadian energy given the particular challenges that we’re facing with takeaway capacity being so constrained,” said Patrick Blais, senior portfolio manager at Manulife Asset Management.

Low Canadian oil prices will force producers to cut production next year which will have a significant economic impact, he added.

“It’s a tough week to get any momentum or traction behind the Canadian market given that a lot of the bullishness surrounding investing in Canada was based on oil fundamentals coming into a healthy position and now that’s basically been thrown out and we’re going to face a tough environment to find investors to step back into Canada given the challenging prospects.”

The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 10.62 points to 15,155.50, but down from 15.274.44 a week ago.