Roundup: Canadian stock market recovers as healthcare rallies

Canada's main stock market in Toronto on Wednesday recovered slightly from the sharp drop a day earlier after healthcare shares boosted the trading sentiment.

Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index moved higher 63.35 points, or 0.47 percent, to 13,545.25 points on the closing bell.

Health Care led the increase by 4.81 percent when its heavyweight Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. soared 4.14 percent to 308.45 Canadian dollars (about 232.42 U.S. dollars) per share after the biggest drug-maker in Canada announced Wednesday that its affiliate has entered into a definitive agreement under which Valeant will acquire Synergetics USA, Inc., a supplier of precision surgical devices.

And Concordia Healthcare Corp., another leading company in this sector, jumped 5.25 percent to 106.3 Canadian dollars a share.

Info Tech advanced 1.59 percent with Constellation Software Inc. going up 4.95 percent to 589.31 Canadian dollars a share, and the mining sector was up 1.27 percent when the basic meals producer First Quantum Minerals Ltd. rebounded 4.23 percent to 6.4 Canadian dollars per share, after a big drop by 10.5 percent Tuesday.

By contrast, Energy extended losses by 0.97 percent when the oil and gas producer Suncor Energy Inc. declined 2.91 percent to 35 Canadian dollars a share.

Meanwhile, Utilities and Industrials were in the negative territory, down 1.8 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar was relatively flat at the very beginning of September. It moved slightly lower to 0.7535 U.S. dollar Wednesday, when compared with 0.7563 U.S. dollar Tuesday.

And according to an outlook report by Scotiabank, the risk for the Canadian dollar remains primarily related to the turbulence of the oil prices, with added concern surrounding the policy decision by Bank of Canada on Sept. 9 and the looming national election in mid-October. Endit