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Roundup: Canadian stock market drops as financials, miners plunge

Xinhua, March 4, 2015 Adjust font size:

Canada's main stock market dropped on Tuesday as the heavily weighed financial and mining shares tumbled.

Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index shed 130.20 points or 0.85 percent to 15,133.85 points, with losses seen across nearly every major sector.

The most heavily weighed sector declined 1.14 percent when Bank of Nova Scotia shed 1.72 percent to 65.78 Canadian dollars (about 52.66 U.S. dollars) per share due to its worse-than-expected quarterly profit report. The third biggest bank in Canada reported Tuesday that its net earnings were 1.73 billion Canadian dollars in the first quarter 2015, up from 1.71 billion Canadian dollars in the same period a year ago.

During midday trading, investors were in speculation about interest rates decision by the Canadian central bank on Wednesday, and analysts believe that the central bank may lower the benchmark rate again, due to the oil plunge, which is weighing on Canada's economy.

Miners' shares led the TSX decline by 2.5 percent when April bullion contract fell 3.7 U.S. dollars to 1,204 U.S. dollars per ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Goldcorp Inc. dropped 1.92 percent to 26.08 Canadian dollars and Barrick Gold Corp. descended 2.50 percent to 15.61 Canadian dollars.

Info-tech sector lost 1.93 percent as the Canadian cellphone maker BlackBerry Ltd. introduced the new BlackBerry Leap for young mobile professionals who value security and privacy in a modern and powerful design package on Tuesday. Its shares dropped 1.30 percent to 13.69 Canadian dollars. And another IT and business consulting services provider CGI Group Inc. slumped 2.07 percent to 52.64 Canadian dollars.

However, energy sector bucked the trend by rising 1.05 percent over a rally in crude oil price. The share of Canadian energy giant Suncor Energy rose 1.29 percent to 37.56 Canadian dollars.

On the economic front, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday morning that real gross domestic product (GDP) grew 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter, following a 0.8 percent gain in the third quarter.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar rose to 0.8006 U.S. dollar from 0.7978 U.S. dollar on Monday amid the upbeat GDP data. Endite