Canada shares lower at close of trade; S&P/TSX Composite down 0.25%

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

At the close in Toronto, the S&P/TSX Composite fell 0.25% to hit a new 3-month low.

The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/TSX Composite were Nevsun Resources Ltd (TO: NSU ), which rose 17.81% or 0.880 points to trade at 5.820 at the close. MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Ltd (TO: MAXR ) added 5.26% or 2.04 points to end at 40.79 and Loblaw Companies Limited (TO: L ) was up 4.57% or 3.03 points to 69.27 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Precision Drilling Corporation (TO: PD ), which lost 7.50% or 0.38 points to trade at 4.69 in late trade. Canada Goose Holdings Inc (TO: GOOS ) declined 7.33% or 5.82 points to end at 73.57 and BlackBerry Ltd (TO: BB ) shed 6.07% or 0.85 points to 13.15.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 700 to 372 and 127 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 up 1.75% to 14.53 a new 3-month high.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for December delivery was up 0.25% or 3.00 to $1202.10 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in October fell 1.40% or 0.98 to hit $68.89 a barrel, while the November Brent oil contract fell 1.07% or 0.84 to trade at $77.33 a barrel.

CAD/USD was up 0.12% to 0.7592, while CAD/EUR fell 0.31% to 0.6527.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.31% at 95.07.