Canadian shares fell, ending a three-day advance, as a slump among financial shares offset a rally among commodity producers.
The benchmark Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index (TSE:OSPTX) was down 0.1 percent at 15,106.83 at 12:39 p.m. in Toronto. Seven out of 10 main share groups were in the negative territory.
Financials, the index's most heavily weighted sector, slipped 0.3 percent. Royal Bank of Canada (TSE:RY), which has the heaviest weighting in the index, fell 0.5 percent to C$79.66. Toronto-Dominion Bank (TSE:TD), the second-largest bank by market value, skidded 0.2 percent to C$56.01.
The energy sector, the main index's second most heavily weighted group, rose 1 percent as oil prices pared gains slightly, then rebounded. Suncor Energy (TSE:SU), Canada's largest oil sands producer, rose 0.8 percent to C$36.43. Canadian Natural Resources Limited (TSE:CNQ), Canada’s second-largest energy producer, gained 0.7 percent to C$37.99.
Light, sweet crude for July delivery recently traded up 1.4 percent at $58.82 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent, the global benchmark, rose 91 1.4 percent to $64.93 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.
The materials sub-index, which includes mining shares, rose 0.3 percent as gold edged higher today.
Goldcorp (TSE:G), Canada’s largest gold miner by market value, fell 0.3 percent to C$22.69. Barrick Gold (TSE:ABX), the second-largest, inched up 0.2 percent to C$15.29.
B2Gold (TSE:BTO), the Canadian gold producer with assets in Latin America, Africa and Asia, rose 4.4 percent to C$2.13 after securing a new revolving credit facility and boosting its gold production.
Spot gold was up 0.3 percent at $1,211 an ounce, while U.S. gold futures for June delivery were $4.10 higher at $1,210.
Sears Canada (TSE:SCC), the embattled department-store chain, rose 1.5 percent to $10.67. The company said revenue fell 9.7 percent and same-store sales fell 4.3 percent, but it posted a smaller loss than a year earlier.
ProMetic Life Sciences (TSE:PLI) edged up 0.8 percent to $2.50 after saying it presented new preclinical data on PBI-4050, its orally active anti-fibrotic drug candidate in phase II clinical trials for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
The junior S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index (CVE:OSPVX) was little changed at 695.09 at 12:25 p.m.
In economic news, Statistics Canada said today that the value of Canadian wholesale trade in March rebounded after two consecutive declines, rising 0.8 percent from February to C$53.94 billion.
In the U.S. market, shares were little changed today. The S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) skidded 0.2 percent to 2,124 at 11:50 a.m. in New York. The 30-company Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX:.DJI) dropped 0.2 percent to 18,283, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC) fell 0.1 percent to 5,063. Most followed shares included Lowe’s, Staples, Hormel Foods, Target, Pep Boys Manny Moe, Etsy, Autodesk, Yahoo!, Computer Sciences, Sarepta Therapeutics, Johnson & Johnson, Northrop Grumman, Lpath, and UBS Group.