Investing.com – Canada equities were higher at the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Consumer Staples, Utilities and Healthcare sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Toronto, the S&P/TSX Composite gained 0.43%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/TSX Composite were Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp . (TO:PRE), which rose 6.91% or 0.23 points to trade at 3.56 at the close. Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners LP (TO:BEP_u) added 6.59% or 2.27 points to end at 36.74 and Extendicare Inc (TO:EXE) was up 5.32% or 0.43 points to 8.51 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Penn West Petroleum Ltd. (TO:PWT), which lost 9.18% or 0.19 points to trade at 1.88 in late trade. Corus Entertainment Inc (TO:CJRb) declined 8.99% or 1.48 points to end at 14.98 and Ensign Energy Services Inc . (TO:ESI) shed 6.12% or 0.70 points to 10.73.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 781 to 601 and 204 ended unchanged on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
The S&P/TSX 60 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/TSX Composite options, was up 13.01% to 10.34.
In commodities trading, Gold for August delivery was down 0.45% or 5.20 to $1148.30 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in August fell 2.75% or 1.46 to hit $51.58 a barrel, while the September Brent oil contract fell 2.28% or 1.34 to trade at $57.34 a barrel.
CAD/USD was down 1.43% to 0.7743, while CAD/EUR fell 0.85% to 0.7074.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.49% at 97.28.