Investing.com – Canada equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Healthcare, Industrials and IT sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Toronto, the S&P/TSX Composite lost 0.25%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/TSX Composite were Empire Company Ltd (TO:EMPa), which rose 10.68% or 2.75 points to trade at 28.51 at the close. AltaGas Ltd (TO:ALA) added 9.69% or 1.33 points to end at 15.05 and Baytex Energy Corp (TO:BTE) was up 8.41% or 0.19 points to 2.45 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Aphria Inc (TO:APHA), which lost 10.48% or 0.815 points to trade at 6.965 in late trade. Birchcliff Energy Ltd . (TO:BIR) declined 6.69% or 0.22 points to end at 3.07 and Aurora Cannabis Inc (TO:ACB) shed 6.50% or 0.53 points to 7.62.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 589 to 533 and 116 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 0.50% to 20.22 a new 1-month high.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for February delivery was down 0.25% or 3.15 to $1246.85 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in January rose 3.85% or 1.97 to hit $53.12 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract rose 2.86% or 1.72 to trade at $61.87 a barrel.
CAD/USD was down 0.01% to 0.7489, while CAD/EUR rose 0.05% to 0.6591.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.05% at 97.062.