Roundup: Slipping crude oil pull Toronto stocks slightly lower

Canada's main stock market in Toronto see-sawed to close mildly lower Wednesday as crude prices slipped further and markets examined U.S. Federal Reserve chairwoman's remarks for further interest rate hikes.

The Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index lost 96.93 points, or 0.79 percent, to close at 12,185.72 points. Six of the TSX index's eight main sub-sectors went down.

International oil prices remained defensive Wednesday after posting a third-biggest daily fall since the 2008 financial crisis the day before. U.S. WTI for March delivery moved down 49 cents to settle at 27.45 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for April delivery increased 52 cents to close at 30.84 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.

In her remarks to Congress on Wednesday, Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen noted that, if the U.S. economy were to disappoint, the Fed would have to reconsider its rate hike path.

"With gradual adjustments in the stance of monetary policy, economic activity will expand at a moderate pace in coming years and that labor market indicators will continue to strengthen," Yellen said in a testimony before the Committee on Financial Services of the House of Representatives.

"Financial markets will be looking for any indication of the next interest rate hike in the U.S., if she hints that none are forth coming due to poor U.S. economic data then look for the Greenback to take big hit across the board," said Michael J Smith, a Toronto currency expert at AFEX, a global non-bank provider of foreign currency services.

In early trading, the Toronto market clawed back some losses from earlier this week, but failed to hold up to positive territory. TSX's energy and mining sectors were down 2.66 percent and 3.03 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, gold miners stabilized after investors took gold as safe haven. Vancouver gold producer B2Gold Corp. rose 1.64 percent to 1.24 Canadian dollars per share, Toronto-based Kinross Gold Corporation added 5.92 percent to 3.58 dollars per share, and Barrick Gold Corporation, the largest gold mining company in the world, increased 3.47 percent to 16.11 dollars a share.

Telesta Therapeutics Inc. soared 26.32 percent to 0.12 Canadian dollar per share, as investors were expecting its earnings release due on Thursday. Formerly Bioniche Life Sciences Inc., Telesta Therapeutics is a Canada biopharmaceutical company, with a market cap of 28.65 million U.S. dollars.

As the Canadian dollar declined, the Canada Pension Plan's main investment fund made a return of 4.5 percent in the last three months of 2015, the CPP Investment Board said Wednesday.

The lower loonie was a big factor in that gain, said the CPP Investment Board. The largest pension fund in the country had assets at year-end of 282.6 billion Canadian dollars, an increase of 9.7 billion from three months earlier.

The Canadian dollar was traded lower at 0.7177 U.S. dollar, compared with Tuesday's closing rate of 0.7205 U.S. dollar. Endite