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Roundup: Canadian stock market ends lower over info-tech, healthcare selloff

Xinhua, February 28, 2015 Adjust font size:

Canada's main stock market slipped slightly as the losses from the info tech and the healthcare shares led the fall.

Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index was down 6.82 points or 0.04 percent to 15,234.34 points.

Info-tech stocks plunged 2.07 percent, as CGI Group Inc. dived 3.52 percent to 52.31 Canadian dollars (about 41.84 U.S. dollars) and Open Text Corp. lost 1.81 percent to 72.82 Canadian dollars.

Healthcare sector slumped 1.27 percent with Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. plunging 2.28 percent to 246. 27 Canadian dollars and Catamaran Corp. plummeting 2.97 percent to 61.41 Canadian dollars.

Industrials gave back 0.50 percent when Bombardier Inc. fell 0. 38 percent to 2.6 Canadian dollars after its new plane CS300 takes to the air in test flight on Friday. Bombardier announced that it will get about 868 million U.S. dollars from a previous equity financing program to cover the high costs of the CSeries program.

Among other losers, energy and telecom stocks lost 0.59 percent and 0.31 percent, respectively.

However, metals and mining advanced 1.70 percent as April gold moved ahead 3 U.S. dollars to 1213.1 dollars per ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Eldorado Gold Corporation jumped 4.19 percent to 7.21 Canadian dollars per share.

The basic metals shares also rallied when Teck Resources Ltd. jumped 2.97 percent to 20.08 Canadian dollars.

Financials, the most weighed sector, gained 0.37 percent, when Toronto-Dominion Bank added 0.61 percent to 54.8 Canadian dollars and Royal Bank of Canada increased 0.31 percent to 78.31 percent.

On the economic front, investors were following the move of the Canadian central bank. On March 4, the Bank of Canada will announce its decision on the target for the overnight rate.

According to Benjamin Reitzes, a senior economist from Bank of Montreal, the bank looks to hold rates at 0.75 percent on March 4, as policymakers believe the January cut "was the appropriate amount of insurance" to cushion current downside economic and inflation risks.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar went higher to 0. 7998 U.S. dollar Friday from 0.7983 U.S. dollar on Thursday. Endite