Roundup: Canadian stock market loses ground over falling oil prices

Canada's main stock market lost ground on Thursday as the falling oil prices hammered down the trading sentiment, triggering a selloff in resources shares.

The benchmark Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index declined 88.31 points, or 0.59 percent, to 14,873.93 points.

Traders' concern about global crude supply weighed on the midday trading in the North American stock market, when U.S. commercial crude oil inventories at the end of February provided most days of supply since the mid-1980s. Commercial crude inventories were sufficient to supply 29 days of U.S. refinery demand, based on expected refinery runs in March, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Thursday.

In a response, light, sweet crude for April delivery lost 0.7 U. S. dollar to settle at 43.96 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for May delivery moved down 1.48 dollars to close at 54.43 dollars a barrel.

Energy shares led the decliners by 2.74 percent when Suncor Energy Inc. lost 1.45 percent to 35.41 Canadian dollars (about 27. 83 U.S. dollars), while Canadian Oil Sands Ltd. shed 4.54 percent to 9.26 Canadian dollars.

Metals and mining shares lost 1.40 percent as giants of the basic metals dropped. Teck Resources Ltd. lowered 1.23 percent to 17.61 Canadian dollars and HudBay Minerals Inc. dived 4.15 percent to 9.23 percent.

Other losers in TSX Thursday included financials and utilities, down 0.33 percent and 0.56 percent respectively.

However, healthcare and info tech stocks helped reduced the losses in TSX, moving up 1.09 percent and 0.54 percent individually. Drug maker Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. added 1.87 percent to 260.48 Canadian dollars.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar dropped to 0.7858 U. S. dollar on Thursday, compared with 0.7955 U.S. dollars on Wednesday. Endite