Canada shares lower at close of trade; S&P/TSX Composite down 1.39% By Investing.com

Investing.com – Canada equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Healthcare, IT and Clean Technology sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in Toronto, the S&P/TSX Composite declined 1.39%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/TSX Composite were MEG Energy Corp (TSX:MEG), which rose 6.18% or 0.42 points to trade at 7.22 at the close. Mullen Group Ltd . (TSX:MTL) added 5.02% or 0.52 points to end at 10.88 and Alamos Gold Inc (TSX:AGI) was up 3.47% or 0.32 points to 9.55 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Kinaxis Inc (TSX:KXS), which lost 17.30% or 28.22 points to trade at 134.94 in late trade. Lightspeed POS Inc (TSX:LSPD) declined 12.29% or 10.51 points to end at 75.03 and Aphria Inc (TSX:APHA) shed 9.21% or 2.120 points to 20.890.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 842 to 252 and 88 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 down 1.28% or 22.00 to $1693.80 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in April rose 4.08% or 2.50 to hit $63.78 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract rose 4.04% or 2.59 to trade at $66.66 a barrel.

CAD/USD was down 0.02% to 0.7900, while CAD/EUR rose 0.73% to 0.6596.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.70% at 91.578.