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Roundup: Canadian stock market drops over continuous slump in commodities

Xinhua, July 25, 2015 Adjust font size:

Canada's main stock market in Toronto on Friday dropped for the fifth straight day, as resources shares hammered down the trading sentiment over the continuous weakness in the prices of commodities.

Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index was down 79.13 points, or 0.55 percent, to 14,186. 24 points, after gains by Telecom and Industrials, which were up 0. 9 percent and 0.19 percent, respectively, were offset by the slump in resources shares.

The energy sector, down 2.18 percent, led the TSX decline as the Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) for September delivery was down 0. 31 U.S. dollar to settle at 48.14 U.S. dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange Friday.

Many analysts' outlook for the oil industry in Canada indicated that companies from the energy sector will suffer big downturns this year, when the crude market has been sluggish since mid-2014, followed by waves of job cuts since the beginning of this year.

The Calgary-based energy company Encana Friday reported a loss attributable to shareholders of 1.61-billion U.S. dollars for the second quarter this year, and it will cut another 200 jobs in July, which means the number of the laid-off employees has risen to about 1,400 since late 2013. Its share prices nosedived 8.64 percent to 10.26 Canadian dollars (about 7.87 U.S. dollars).

And Suncor Energy, Canada's biggest oil and gas company, lost 1. 69 percent to 33.08 Canadian dollars a share.

The mining sector declined 1.57 percent when the copper miner First Quantum Minerals Ltd. lost 2.28 percent to 12.01 Canadian dollars a share, after the three-month unofficial copper price dropped 54 U.S. dollars, or 1.02 percent, to 5,240 U.S. dollars per tonne on the London Metal Exchange (LME) Friday.

But its sub-sector gold group rallied with a upswing correction after a big slump in the Thursday's trading, when Goldcorp Inc. jumped 4.14 percent to 17.35 Canadian dollars per share.

Health Care was down 1.3 percent Friday when investors took profits following a big rally in this sector Thursday, with Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. giving back 4.2 percent to 326.7 Canadian dollars per share. Shares of the biggest drug maker in Canada skyrocketed 9.21 percent Thursday.

Meanwhile, the most weighed sector Financials in TSX was lower 0.7 percent when Royal Bank of Canada continued falling 1.24 percent to 74.59 Canadian dollars, the same loss rate as that on Thursday.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar on Friday was almost flat at 0.7672 U.S. dollar, compared with 0.7669 U.S. dollar Thursday. Endite