Canada's main stock market tumbles amid U.S. Fed announcement, falling oil prices

Toronto Stock Exchange, Canada's main stock market, on Wednesday plunged amid U.S. Federal Reserve' s latest announcement and the falling oil prices.

Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index dropped 231 points, or 1.56 percent, to close at 14,602.88 points, and all the heavily-weighed sectors lost ground.

The most heavily-weighed sector Financials gave back 1.17 percent, the biggest drop in a single trading day in two weeks, after the U.S. Fed announced Wednesday that it would keep "patient " in raising interest rates and stressed that American economy has been expanding solidly. And investors believed the Fed probably lift interest rates in the coming months.

In a direct response, banks shares were in the red when Canada' s second largest bank Toronto-Dominion lost 1.99 percent to 51.19 Canadian dollars (about 40.89 U.S. dollars) a share.

The market was also hammered down by the falling oil prices, when light, sweet crude for March delivery lost 1.78 U.S. dollars to settle at 44.45 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Energy dived 4.86 percent when most Canadian oil producers suffered big losses. Suncor Energy Inc. retreated 2.37 percent to 36.74 Canadian dollars and Canadian Oil Sands Ltd. even nosedived 10.36 percent to 7.01 Canadian dollars per share.

The metals and mining sector shrank 1.48 percent when gold shares were in the negative streak with Barrick Gold down 2.89 percent to 15.79 Canadian dollars per share.

On economic front, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday that the country added 121,000 jobs nationwide last year, a rise of 0.7 percent from the previous year, while in the 12 months to December, the unemployment rate declined 0.5 percentage points to 6.7 percent.

However, "overall, Canadian employment growth was weaker than expected. At the very least, it appears to support the Bank of Canada's view that there is still lots of labour market slack. And, perhaps, it paves the way for another rate cut in March," according to a report released by Bank of Montreal.

On currency front, the Canadian dollar declined to 0.7987 U.S. dollar on Wednesday, compared with 0.8062 U.S. dollar Tuesday, as the greenback rallied against major currencies over the Fed's announcement. Endite