Canada shares lower at close of trade; S&P/TSX Composite down 0.42%

Investing.com – Canada equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Healthcare, Consumer Discretionary and IT sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in Toronto, the S&P/TSX Composite declined 0.42%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/TSX Composite were Transcontinental Inc (TSX:TCLa), which rose 9.10% or 1.84 points to trade at 22.07 at the close. Cameco Corp (TSX:CCO) added 8.13% or 1.29 points to end at 17.15 and Boralex Inc (TSX:BLX) was up 2.77% or 1.06 points to 39.29 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Colliers International Group Inc Bats (TSX:CIGI), which lost 3.54% or 4.11 points to trade at 111.90 in late trade. PrairieSky Royalty Ltd (TSX:PSK) declined 3.50% or 0.40 points to end at 10.90 and HudBay Minerals Inc (TSX:HBM) shed 3.36% or 0.29 points to 8.34.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 616 to 412 and 113 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 unchanged 0% to 11.27.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.35% or 6.35 to $1843.75 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in January fell 0.34% or 0.16 to hit $46.62 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract fell 0.36% or 0.18 to trade at $50.07 a barrel.

CAD/USD was down 0.21% to 0.7833, while CAD/EUR fell 0.02% to 0.6464.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.17% at 90.970.