Canada shares higher at close of trade; S&P/TSX Composite up 0.85%

Investing.com – Canada equities were higher at the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Clean Technology , Materials and IT sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in Toronto, the S&P/TSX Composite rose 0.85%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/TSX Composite were NexGen Energy Ltd. (TSX: NXE ), which rose 9.27% or 0.650 points to trade at 7.660 at the close. Eldorado Gold Corp (TSX: ELD ) added 9.13% or 0.99 points to end at 11.83 and Ballard Power Systems Inc (TSX: BLDP ) was up 7.30% or 1.36 points to 19.99 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd (TSX: FFH ), which lost 2.58% or 13.33 points to trade at 504.08 in late trade. Dye & Durham Ltd (TSX: DND ) declined 2.23% or 0.82 points to end at 36.03 and SunOpta Inc . (TSX: SOY ) shed 2.17% or 0.24 points to 10.84.

Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 655 to 366 and 108 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 December delivery was up 1.93% or 33.90 to $1793.20 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in November fell 0.11% or 0.09 to hit $80.55 a barrel, while the December Brent oil contract fell 0.18% or 0.15 to trade at $83.27 a barrel.

CAD/USD was up 0.22% to 0.8037, while CAD/EUR fell 0.29% to 0.6935.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.47% at 94.073.