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Canadian stocks inch down as Energy and Financials fade

Xinhua, November 25, 2016 Adjust font size:

Canada's main stock market in Toronto fell slightly on Thursday as losses in Energy and Financials sectors outweighed gains in health care and mining stocks.

The Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index dropped 5.71 points, or 0.04 percent, to end the session at 15,075.20 points. Half of the ten sub-sectors lost ground on the day.

With U.S. markets closed for Thanksgiving, none of the Canadian sectors moved by more than one percent.

Energy and Financials, two of the index's most heavily weighted sectors, saw respective drops of 0.16 percent and 0.05 percent on the day.

Energy's decline was attributed to Brent crude oil in January ticking down 13 cents to 48.86 U.S. dollars a barrel in London. Meanwhile, natural gas gained 0.8 cents to closed the day at 3.026 U.S. dollars per million British thermal units.

The TSX Financials Group fell due to over two million shares of Toronto-based insurance firm Manulife Financial Corporation being traded. The stock closed at 23.51 Canadian dollars (17.43 U.S. dollars), a 0.84 percent decline.

Other groups that ended the day with losses were Consumer Staples (0.56 percent), Consumer Discretionary (0.24 percent), and Information Technology (0.04 percent).

Conversely, the TSX Health Care group was the biggest gainer on the day, rising 0.80 percent to snap a four-session losing streak. Shares of Quebec-based drugmakers Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. and ProMetic Life Sciences Inc. had increases of 2.84 percent and 2.52 percent, respectively.

Groups also advancing on the day were Materials (0.20 percent), Telecommunications (0.17 percent), Industrials (0.07 percent), and Utilities (0.02 percent).

The Materials group, which is made up of producers of gold, precious metals and fertilizers, edged up as price of copper and zinc moved up. The spot price of copper rose 3.04 cents to 2.6246 U.S. dollars a pound while the price for the same weight of zinc advanced 2.25 cents to 1.2256 U.S. dollars.

As a result, shares of Trevali Mining Corporation, a zinc-focused miner with operations in Peru and Canada, surged 6.30 percent to 1.35 Canadian dollars (1.00 U.S. dollars). Meanwhile, First Quantum Minerals Ltd, a Vancouver-based mining company who predominately mines copper, saw stock price jump 4.25 percent to 16.67 Canadian dollars (12.36 U.S. dollars).

Gold did not move in the same direction as the other two metals, as the spot price of bullion slipped 0.49 percent to 1183.60 U.S. dollars an ounce. The precious metal has slumped 9.52 percent since the beginning of the month.

Industrials sub-sector ticked up as Bombardier Inc. stock rose 1.05 percent to 1.92 Canadian dollars (1.42 U.S. dollars) after receiving an 585 million Euro (620 million U.S. dollar) order from the French region of Normandy to produce 40 OMNEO double deck trains by the end of 2019.

The Canadian dollar ticked up 0.0004 to close the day at 0.7413 U.S. dollars. Endite