Investing.com – Canada equities were higher at the close on Friday, as gains in the IT, Consumer Discretionary and Healthcare sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Toronto, the S&P/TSX Composite gained 0.74%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/TSX Composite were Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc (TO:VRX), which rose 5.16% or 1.77 points to trade at 36.04 at the close. Parex Resources Inc (TO:PXT) added 4.09% or 0.520 points to end at 13.240 and Descartes Systems Group Inc (TO:DSG) was up 3.49% or 0.85 points to 25.24 in late trade.
Biggest losers included DHX Media Ltd (TO:DHXb), which lost 5.55% or 0.37 points to trade at 6.30 in late trade. Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (TO:FFH) declined 2.70% or 18.48 points to end at 664.79 and Concordia Healthcare (TO:CXR) shed 2.40% or 0.99 points to 40.19.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 537 to 260 and 108 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 down 42.94% to 8.73 a new 6-month low.
In commodities trading, Gold for June delivery was down 0.13% or 1.60 to $1253.20 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July fell 0.35% or 0.17 to hit $48.50 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract rose 0.06% or 0.03 to trade at $48.84 a barrel.
CAD/USD was down 0.24% to 0.7619, while CAD/EUR fell 0.34% to 0.6793.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.03% at 95.33.