Canadian stock market slips as resources shares lose ground

Facade of the Toronto Stock Exchange (ShutterStock image)

TORONTO — Canada’s main stock market slipped slightly Wednesday with the gains of financial stocks overpowered by the losses in resources shares.

Toronto Stock Exchange’s benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index was down 16.56 points or 0.11 percent to 15,602.65 points. Even with Wednesday’s setback, the main Canadian stock market has logged a solid growth of 15 percent since the beginning of this year.

The financial sector gained 0.36 percent, when shares of Canada ‘s giant banks rallied in a quarterly earnings report season. National Bank of Canada jumped 3.06 percent to 50.91 Canadian dollars (about 46.90 U.S. dollars), after it reported its finance performance for the third quarter ending July 31, 2014, saying that its net earnings were 441 million Canadian dollars, up 10 percent from a year ago.

Bank of Montreal rose 1.19 percent to 83.14 Canadian dollars per share, extending gains after it reported Tuesday a net income of 1.1 billion Canadian dollars for the third quarter of this year.

However, the equities market was weighed when the resources stocks lost ground, offsetting the gains in the financial group, with the mining sector down 0.8 percent and the energy sector down 0.21 percent.

Cameco Corp., a Canadian uranium miner, plunged 3.51 percent to 21.14 Canadian dollars, and Yamana Gold Inc. lost 1.64 percent to 9.01 Canadian dollars per share.

Meanwhile, the Talisman Energy Inc. dived 5.05 percent to 11.10 Canadian dollars and Surge Energy Inc. declined 2.07 percent to 8. 52 Canadian dollars.

The healthcare sector lost 0.78 percent, while the industrial sector was down 0.27 percent

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar moved up to 0.9212 U. S. dollar Wednesday, compared with 0.9131 U.S. dollar Tuesday, when traders were expecting a strong economic growth data updated by Statistics Canada on Friday.