TSX Ends Moderately Lower

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market ended weak on Tuesday and the benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index dropped to a fresh 4-month low, amid concerns about trade tensions between Canada and the U.S.

After speaking about hiking tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 50%, and raising duties on auto parts, the Trump administration said the hike will not become effective tomorrow, as Canada agreed to suspend a 25% tariff on electricity exports.

Investors looked ahead to the Bank of Canada's monetary policy announcement on Wednesday.

The Canadian central bank is widely expected to lower interest rate by 25 basis points.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index closed down 132.51 points or 0.54% at 24,248.20, after scaling a low of 24,155.63 and a high of 24,493.46 intraday.

Consumer staples, healthcare, consumer discretionary, industrials, financials and communications shares were among the notable losers. Materials stocks moved higher on firm bullion prices. Energy stocks too found good support.

Tilray closed down 7.4%. Ballard Power Systems, BRP Inc., Telus, Imperial Oil, Magna International, Enghouse Systems, Algonquin Power & Utilties, Stantec, Bombardier Inc., Empire Company, Aritzia, CCL Industrial, Metro and Loblaw Companies ended lower by 3 to 6%.

Canadian National Railway, George Weston, Toromont Industries, Alimentation Couche-Tard, Gildan Activewear, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Montreal, Air Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Stella-Jones and TFI International were among the other major losers.

First Majestic Silver soared 10.3% and Knight Theapeutics surged 10.1%. Iamgold Corp., New Gold, MAG Silver, Silvercorp Metals, Celestica Inc., Hudbay Minerals, Vermilion Energy, Kinross Gold, Pan American Silver Corp, SSR Mining and Enerflex rallied 4 to 8%.

ARC Resources Ltd shares gained more than 2.5%. The company announced that it has entered into a long-term sale and purchase agreement with ExxonMobil LNG Asia Pacific, an ExxonMobil (XOM) affiliate, for the supply of liquefied natural gas.

Under the agreement ExxonMobil LNG will purchase all of ARC's LNG offtake from the Cedar LNG Project at international LNG pricing, which will be approximately 1.5 million tonnes per annum.