Roundup: Canadian stock market extends losses over downbeat U.S. data

Canada's stocks in Toronto Wednesday slumped for a third straight trading day as the worse- than-expected U.S. retail data weighed on the North American equities markets.

Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index dropped 62.43 points, or 0.42 percent, to 14,980.72 points.

Although the index opened widely higher in most of the major sectors in the morning trading, the trading sentiment was hammered down when a report released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Commerce showed retail sales stayed unchanged in April, missing market expectation of a 0.2 percent gain.

Losses were seen across the board in the eight major sectors in TSX, except Utilities, slightly up 0.13 percent.

Health Care plunged 1.89 percent while Industrials lowered 1.19 percent, leading the losers on the closing bell.

And Financials, the most weighted sector in TSX, dipped 0.24 percent when the insurance giant Manulife Financial was down 0.43 percent to 22.92 Canadian dollars (about 19.15 U.S. dollars) per share.

Resources shares including energy and miners traded lower over the turbulence of the commodities market, when the prices of the oil and copper futures were losing ground Wednesday.

Energy sector declined 0.61 percent when Canadian Oil Sands Ltd. dived 3.96 percent to 11.39 Canadian dollars, and the Calgary- based gas and oil company Encana waned 2.22 percent to 16.30 Canadian dollars apiece.

Metals and Mining closed lower 1.04 percent when the basic metals giants were in the negative territory. Teck Resources, Canada's leading miner in diversified basic metals including copper, declined 2.2 percent to 16.87 Canadian dollars, while First Quantum Minerals Ltd. also lost 1.74 percent to 18.09 Canadian dollars.

However, the sub-sector gold group was an active mover to strengthen the TSX index, over solid gains in gold prices, as the most active gold contract for June delivery spiked 25.8 U.S. dollars, or 2.16 percent, to settle at 1,218.20 dollars per ounce on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

S&P/TSX Global Gold Index, the leading benchmark of global gold portfolios in TSX, rallied 2 percent in a single trading day, the biggest increase in nearly one month.

Most of the gold companies hailed the increase with the world's biggest gold producer Barrick, which jumped 2.79 percent to 15.84 Canadian dollars a share, while another giant Goldcorp rose 2.2 percent to 23.24 Canadian dollars.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar on Wednesday moved higher to 0.8356 U.S. dollar, compared with 0.8321 U.S. dollar Tuesday, after the U.S. dollar was weaker against major currencies over the disappointing retail data from the United States. Endite