Canada shares lower at close of trade; S&P/TSX Composite down 1.62% By Investing.com

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

At the close in Toronto, the S&P/TSX Composite lost 1.62% to hit a new 1-month low.

The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/TSX Composite were MAG Silver Corp (TSX:MAG), which rose 11.41% or 2.61 points to trade at 25.49 at the close. Silvercorp Metals Inc (TSX:SVM) added 6.03% or 0.47 points to end at 8.27 and SilverCrest Metals Inc (TSX:SIL) was up 5.93% or 0.73 points to 13.03 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Aphria Inc (TSX:APHA), which lost 5.67% or 0.940 points to trade at 15.640 in late trade. Air Canada (TSX:AC) declined 5.66% or 1.19 points to end at 19.84 and BlackBerry Ltd (TSX:BB) shed 5.59% or 1.05 points to 17.75.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 704 to 327 and 89 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 April delivery was up 0.70% or 12.80 to $1854.00 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in March fell 0.13% or 0.07 to hit $52.27 a barrel, while the April Brent oil contract rose 0.04% or 0.02 to trade at $55.12 a barrel.

CAD/USD was up 0.27% to 0.7814, while CAD/EUR rose 0.21% to 0.6441.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.12% at 90.540.