Canada shares higher at close of trade; S&P/TSX Composite up 0.31%

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

At the close in Toronto, the S&P/TSX Composite added 0.31%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/TSX Composite were Shopify Inc (TSX: SHOP ), which rose 5.87% or 65.14 points to trade at 1174.98 at the close. Cargojet Inc (TSX: CJT ) added 5.18% or 7.77 points to end at 157.66 and Empire Company Ltd (TSX: EMPa ) was up 5.03% or 1.57 points to 32.76 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Hexo Corp (TSX: HEXO ), which lost 5.41% or 0.060 points to trade at 1.050 in late trade. Enerflex Ltd . (TSX: EFX ) declined 4.37% or 0.24 points to end at 5.25 and IAMGold Corporation (TSX: IMG ) shed 3.98% or 0.18 points to 4.34.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 526 to 462 and 116 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 August delivery was down 0.27% or 4.75 to $1730.85 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July rose 2.50% or 0.95 to hit $38.91 a barrel, while the August Brent oil contract rose 1.99% or 0.81 to trade at $41.52 a barrel.

CAD/USD was down 0.28% to 0.7349, while CAD/EUR rose 0.06% to 0.6558.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.28% at 97.420.