Roundup: Canadian stock market extends losses on falling commodities prices

Canada's main stock market in Toronto plummeted with another triple-digit loss Wednesday as the ongoing slump in commodities prices shattered the resources sectors.

The Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index lowered 107.40 points, or 0.8 percent, to 13,383.69 points on the closing bell, as all the major sectors in the TSX were in the red except Health Care, which inched up 0.03 percent.

The mining sector led the decrease by 3.32 percent, with the copper producer First Quantum Minerals Ltd. going down 4.15 percent to 5.55 Canadian dollars (about 4.16 U.S. dollars) a share, and the integrated fertilizer Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc. dived 4.81 percent to 27.93 Canadian dollars per share.

Meanwhile, the energy plunged 2.24 percent when the light, sweet crude for November delivery dropped 1.88 U.S. dollars to settle at 44.48 U.S. dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange Wednesday.

The Calgary-based Baytex Energy Corp. tumbled 11.63 percent to 4.56 Canadian dollars a share and Crescent Point Energy Corp. also fell 6.36 percent to 15.89 Canadian dollars per share.

And the energy sector as a whole had shrunk 44 percent in the past year due to the slump in oil prices.

Also, Industrials was down 1.09 percent when Canada's biggest aircraft and railway maker Bombardier Inc. dived 8.62 percent to 1.59 Canadian dollars a share.

On the economic front, Canada's finance minister Joe Oliver said Wednesday that the Canadian economy was not in a recession in the first half of the year, although there was an economic contraction mainly confined to the energy and resource sector.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar on Wednesday moved down to 0.7492 U.S. dollar, when compared with 0.7543 U.S. dollar Tuesday. Endit