OTTAWA: Canada equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Materials, Industrials and Consumer Discretionary sectors propelled shares lower. At the close in Toronto, the S&P/TSX Composite declined 0.87%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/TSX Composite were ProMetic Life Sciences Inc. (TO:PLI), which rose 16.75% or 0.320 points to trade at 2.230 at the close. HudBay Minerals Inc. (TO:HBM) added 2.54% or 0.19 points to end at 7.68 and Knight Therapeutics Inc (TO:GUD) was up 2.29% or 0.24 points to 10.74 in late trade. Biggest losers included First Majestic Silver Corp. (TO:FR), which lost 7.32% or 0.81 points to trade at 10.26 in late trade. B2Gold Corp (TO:BTO) declined 6.45% or 0.220 points to end at 3.190 and Asanko Gold Inc (TO:AKG) shed 6.36% or 0.280 points to 4.120.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 565 to 517 and 144 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 3.73% to 12.80. In commodities trading, Gold for February delivery was down 0.58% or 6.70 to $1151.40 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in February rose 0.13% or 0.07 to hit $53.84 a barrel, while the March Brent oil contract fell 0.19% or 0.11 to trade at $56.74 a barrel. CAD/USD was up 0.45% to 0.7439, while CAD/EUR rose 0.18% to 0.7072. The US Dollar Index was down 0.24% at 102.41.
