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Roundup: Canadian stock market dips amid downbeat bank earnings report, oil concern

Xinhua, February 25, 2015 Adjust font size:

Canada's main stock market lost ground as the downbeat earnings report of Bank of Montreal and the Canadian central bank's concern about the oil plunge weighed on the market.

Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index was down 35.29 points or 0.23 percent to 15,164.97 points, with five of the eight major sectors in the red.

Financials, the most weighed sector, was lower 0.22 percent when Bank of Montreal, one of the five biggest banks in Canada, reported a worse-than-expected earnings report Tuesday, saying its net income in the first quarter 2015 was one billion, down 6 percent when compared with the same period in 2014. Its share lost 2 percent to 75.83 Canadian dollars (about 60.69 U.S. dollars), which is generally a big drop for a bank share in a single trading day.

Other heavy-weights were also in the negative territory, with TD Bank down 0.5 percent to 53.27 Canadian dollars and Bank of Nova Scotia shedding 1.06 percent to 65.22 Canadian dollars apiece.

Investors had been worried about the profit outlook of Canadian banks in the first quarter of this year due to the oil prices plunge, which scaled down energy companies' capital raising.

Meanwhile, the energy sector dipped 0.3 percent when Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz said on Tuesday that the full negative impact of lower oil prices on Canada's economy remains unclear.

Information technology shares led the decliners by 1.12 percent while Telecom was lower 0.94 percent.

However, the metals and mining sector bucked the trend by rising 3.43 percent when its leading company First Quantum Minerals Ltd. jumped 7.72 percent to 15.21 Canadian dollars per share, after it announced last Friday that the company would pay the final dividend of 0.0487 Canadian dollar per share for the financial year ending Dec. 31, 2014.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar rallied Tuesday to 0. 8003 U.S. dollar, from 0.7952 U.S. dollar last Monday, after the central bank did not give any hint Tuesday to cut its key interest rates in the near future. Endite