Roundup: Canadian stock market continues downswing over miners' selloffs

Canada's main stock market in Toronto on Thursday kept falling for a fifth day since last Friday as selloffs in the mining sector offset the gains driven by the latest upbeat finance reports of leading companies.

Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index lost 41.75 points, or 0.29 percent, to 14,265.37 points, hitting the lowest settlement in a half year.

As a preventive strategy for the investment portfolio, investors shifted to some non-resources sectors which are less volatile. Health Care, for instance, was up 1.91 percent when Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc., the most positive mover in TSX Thursday, skyrocketed 9.21 percent to 341.02 Canadian dollars (about 261.53 U.S. dollars) per share, after a higher-than- expected quarterly profit report. The biggest drug maker in Canada said Thursday that its total revenue was up to 2.7 billion Canadian dollars in the second quarter, an increase of 34 percent over the prior year.

Telecom was up 0.99 percent when its heavyweight Rogers Communications Inc. rose 3.95 percent to 45.56 Canadian dollars after the company said Thursday that its revenue increased 6 percent and adjusted operating profit added 2 percent in the second quarter.

However, the gains were offset when the mining sector led the fall by plunging 4.56 percent. And its sub-sector gold group dropped sharply with the S&P/TSX Global Gold Index down 3.81 percent to 119.73 points, the lowest level in this year.

Shares of gold miners as a whole dived when the world's biggest gold producer Barrick shrank 3.96 percent to 9.21 Canadian dollars and Eldorado Gold lost 3.75 percent to 4.11 Canadian dollars a share.

Another sub-sector basic metals group even suffered more losses when First Quantum Minerals Ltd. nosedived 8.08 percent to 12.29 Canadian dollars apiece.

The TSX index was also dragged down when the most influential sector Financials retreated 0.89 percent. Royal Bank of Canada shrank 1.24 percent to 75.53 Canadian dollars.

Energy was still in the negative territory over the falling oil prices. The Canadian oil and gas giant Encana declined 1.49 percent to 11.23 Canadian dollars.

On the economic beat, Statistics Canada reported Thursday that retail sales rose one percent to 43.0 billion Canadian dollars in May. After steep declines in December and January, retail sales increased for the third time in four months to reach a new high.

The increase in the volume of May retail sales was better than expected. According to a report released by Royal Bank of Canada Thursday, "today's retail sales report will help May 2015 gross domestic product (GDP) eke out a 0.1 percent gain following the 0. 1 percent drop in April.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar on Thursday was basically flat at 0.7669 U.S. dollar, compared with 0.7670 U.S. dollar Wednesday, over the upbeat retail sales data. Endite