Canada shares higher at close of trade; S&P/TSX Composite up 0.05%

Investing.com – Canada equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Healthcare , Materials and Energy sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in Toronto, the S&P/TSX Composite gained 0.05% to hit a new 52-week high.

The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/TSX Composite were Mullen Group Ltd . (TO: MTL ), which rose 7.55% or 1.28 points to trade at 18.23 at the close. IAMGold Corporation (TO: IMG ) added 4.34% or 0.220 points to end at 5.290 and AltaGas Ltd . (TO: ALA ) was up 4.26% or 1.43 points to 34.96 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Milestone Apartments REIT (TO: MST_u ), which lost 3.04% or 0.58 points to trade at 18.48 in late trade. Parex Resources Inc (TO: PXT ) declined 3.00% or 0.530 points to end at 17.150 and Corus Entertainment Inc (TO: CJRb ) shed 2.84% or 0.33 points to 11.27.

Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 660 to 488 and 148 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 down 3.32% to 13.10.

In commodities trading, Gold for December delivery was down 0.25% or 3.15 to $1266.75 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in December fell 2.37% or 1.23 to hit $50.59 a barrel, while the December Brent oil contract fell 2.51% or 1.32 to trade at $51.35 a barrel.

CAD/USD was down 0.76% to 0.7567, while CAD/EUR fell 0.39% to 0.6921.

The US Dollar Index was up 0.45% at 98.31.