Roundup: Canadian stock market drops amid GDP data, earnings reports

Canada's main stock market in Toronto posted a three-digit loss as Canada's latest GDP data and a slate of mixed quarterly earnings reports of leading companies weighed on most sectors.

Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index tumbled 122.82 points, or 0.8 percent, to 15,224.52 points, as gains in the mining sector were wiped out by losses in seven other sectors.

Statistics Canada reported Thursday that the real gross domestic product (GDP) was unchanged in February following a 0.2- percent decline in January, while the manufacturing output declined 0.8 percent and mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction fell 0.6 percent in February. The soft data dampened trading sentiment.

Financials, the most heavily weighed sector in TSX, lost 0.82 percent when the insurance giant Manulife Financial Corp. lost 0. 99 percent to 21.96 Canadian dollars (about 18.20 U.S. dollars) and Canada's second biggest bank TD declined 0.68 percent to 55.70 Canadian dollars per share.

Info tech led the decliners by dropping 1.97 percent. The software giant Open Text Corp. extended losses, down 2.4 percent to 60.96 Canadian dollars, following a big drop of 6.29 percent Wednesday after it reported disappointing quarterly results on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Canada's smartphone maker BlackBerry retreated 1.84 percent to 12.25 Canadian dollars per share.

Energy decreased 0.19 percent when Canada's biggest oil and gas company Suncor Energy Inc. fell 1.48 percent to 39.29 Canadian dollars after reporting a quarterly net loss of 341 million Canadian dollars on Wednesday due to lower crude prices.

Telecom was also down 0.92 percent. BCE Inc., Canada's largest communications company, plunged 1.77 percent to 53.19 Canadian dollars after it reported a modest first-quarter adjust profit, saying that the adjusted net earnings up 12.6 percent to 705 million Canadian dollars.

Other losers included Health care and industrials, down 0.15 percent and 0.71 percent respectively.

The mining sector, however, bucked the trend by jumping 2.34 percent when Lundin Mining Corp. soared 10.5 per cent to 6.00 Canadian dollars apiece after reporting a sharp increase in earnings. The company said that its operating earnings for the quarter ended March 31, 2015 were 274.0 million Canadian dollars, a huge increase from 43.1 million Canadian dollars in the first quarter of the prior year.

But Goldcorp Inc, the world's biggest gold producer by market value, shed 6.2 percent to 22.71 Canadian dollars per share when the company reported its first-quarter adjusted revenues totaling 1.27 billion Canadian dollars while a net loss of 87 million Canadian dollars per share.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar Thursday slipped to 0.8289 U.S. dollar from 0.8317 U.S. dollar of the previous session. Endite