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Roundup: Canadian stock market edges down after U.S. Fed's announcement

Xinhua, June 18, 2015 Adjust font size:

Canada's main stock market in Toronto on Wednesday gave back after the U.S. Federal Reserve signaled that it is on track to raise the benchmark interest rate this year.

Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/ TSX Composite Index lowered 20.07 points, or 0.14 percent, to 14,732. 98 points.

The index fluctuated in the midday trading when investors were waiting for the conclusion of U.S. Federal Open Market Committee ( FOMC) meeting Wednesday afternoon.

Fifteen out of the 17 Fed board members and Fed bank presidents expected the appropriate timing for the first interest rate hike in almost nine years will be in 2015, and only two officials saw 2016 will be the appropriate timing, said the Fed in its quarterly economic projections.

In a direct response, Financials, the most heavily weighed sector in TSX, fell 0.58 percent following a modest gain Tuesday. Shares of Canada's giant banks lost ground, when Toronto-Dominion Bank lost 0.83 percent to 53.86 Canadian dollars (about 44.02 U.S. dollars), and Bank of Nova Scotia retreated 0.84 percent to 65.28 Canadian dollars per share.

Health Care declined 0.69 percent, the biggest drop among TSX sectors, after the bio-pharmaceutical company ProMetic Life Sciences plunged 2.97 percent to 2.29 Canadian dollars, and Concordia Healthcare Corp. was down 0.84 percent to 85.43 Canadian dollars.

However, resources shares were the only two gainers among the eight TSX major sectors, when U.S. official data showed that U.S. crude inventories last week lowered 2.7 million barrels to 467.9 million, according to the weekly report of the Energy Information Administration (EIA) Wednesday.

Energy inched higher 0.06 percent as Cenovus Energy Inc. rose 1. 03 percent to 20.69 Canadian dollars.

And Metals and mining rebounded 0.08 percent after a four-day straight losing spree, with most of the gold shares in the rising streak. Barrick Gold Corporation, the biggest gold producer in the world, jumped 2.61 percent to 14.13 Canadian dollars.

Economically, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday that wholesale sales rose 1.9 percent to 55.2 billion Canadian dollars in April, a second consecutive increase.

As a country heavily integrated with the U.S. economy, investors of Canada's equities market in Toronto were still concerned after the Federal Reserve on Wednesday also lowered its forecast for this year's economic growth of the United States.

"We anticipate that the Fed will begin its rate hiking program in September 2015, backed by our expectation that the weak first- quarter 2015 growth will prove transitory, labour market conditions will continue to tighten during the summer, and the headline inflation will start to rise from recent lows," according to a report released by Royal Bank of Canada Wednesday.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar was stronger against U.S. dollar following Fed's announcement and was trading higher at 0.8173 U.S. dollar Wednesday, from 0.8122 U.S. dollar Tuesday. Endite