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Roundup: Canadian stock market moves lower on jobless data

Xinhua, June 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

Canada's main stock market in Toronto decreased Friday after the release of the jobless data.

Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index lowered 62.23 points, or 0.41 percent, to 14,957. 16 points.

The market fluctuated in midday trading after Statistics Canada reported on Friday morning that the unemployment rate was unchanged at 6.8 percent for the fourth consecutive month, although employment increased by 59,000 in May.

The growth in employment, mainly boosted by the manufacturing sector, was better than observers' expectation. However, according to a report by TD Bank Friday, the outlook for job creation in Canada is to decelerate in the rest of the year.

"Economic activity is projected to remain weak in the second quarter with real GDP growth not forecast to return to above 2 percent (annualized growth) until the second half of 2015," Jonathan Bendiner, an economist from TD Bank, said in the report.

In sector performances, financials was down 0.07 percent as Royal Bank of Canada waned 0.52 percent to 79.58 Canadian dollars (about 63.97 U.S. dollars) and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce edged down 0.38 percent to 94.67 Canadian dollars.

Utilities suffered the biggest drop by 1.6 percent as Fortis Inc. lost 1.84 percent to 36.31 Canadian dollars and Canadian Utilities Ltd. gave back 1.1 percent to 35.92 Canadian dollars per share.

By contrast, the healthcare sector gained 1.11 percent when its heavyweight Concordia Healthcare Corp. jumped 4.71 percent to 93 Canadian dollars, rising for the second consecutive day after the Ontario-based health company focused on legacy pharmaceutical products and orphan drugs, announced Tuesday that it has filed an application to list its common shares on the NASDAQ Global Select Market.

Meanwhile, energy as well as metals and mining, the heavily- weighted resources sectors in TSX, both ticked up 0.05 percent, with the metals and mining logging a nearly three percent rise this week, as a whole.

On the currency front, boosted by the upbeat employment data from Statistics Canada, the Canadian dollar climbed higher Friday to 0.8039 U.S. dollar from 0.7997 U.S. dollar Thursday. Endite