Canada shares lower at close of trade; S&P/TSX Composite down 0.72%

Investing.com – Canada equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Energy , Real Estate and REITs sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in Toronto, the S&P/TSX Composite lost 0.72%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/TSX Composite were Aecon Group Inc . (TO: ARE ), which rose 6.33% or 0.98 points to trade at 16.46 at the close. Asanko Gold Inc (TO: AKG ) added 6.09% or 0.190 points to end at 3.310 and Cott Corporation (TO: BCB ) was up 5.38% or 0.80 points to 15.66 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Baytex Energy Corp (TO: BTE ), which lost 8.17% or 0.41 points to trade at 4.61 in late trade. MEG Energy Corp (TO: MEG ) declined 7.50% or 0.55 points to end at 6.78 and Secure Energy Services Inc . (TO: SES ) shed 7.36% or 0.77 points to 9.69.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 692 to 466 and 138 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 6.54% to 12.22.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was down 0.68% or 8.25 to $1207.85 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in April fell 5.33% or 2.83 to hit $50.31 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract fell 4.81% or 2.69 to trade at $53.23 a barrel.

CAD/USD was down 0.58% to 0.7413, while CAD/EUR fell 0.31% to 0.7031.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.28% at 102.10.