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TORONTO, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- Canada's main stock market ended three straight losing sessions on Wednesday with strong showings from precious metal miners and health care firms.
The Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index gained 69.37 points, or 0.48 percent, to close at 14,618.97 points. Eight of the ten sub-sectors in the index advanced during the day.
After recording losing sessions in six of their last seven sessions and dropping a combined 204.95 points, Toronto stocks had their best performance in two weeks.
During Wednesday's trading session, the TSX Health Care group saw the biggest movement, soaring 3.82 percent. Shares of Quebec-based ProMetic Life Sciences jumped 10.45 percent to 3.17 Canadian dollars (about 2.39 U.S. dollars) after their clinical testing received positive responses from the Drug Safety Monitoring Board.
Meanwhile, Extendicare Inc., a Toronto-based provider of long-term care, saw shares advance 2.66 percent to 9.27 Canadian dollars (6.99 U.S. dollars).
Miners also had a strong showing on the day, as the TSX Materials groups, which feature miners of gold and other metals, rose 1.93 percent. Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. shares surged 7.80 percent to 2.35 Canadian dollars (1.77 U.S. dollars) after the company executives announced the discovery of 192 million tons of copper in their mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In addition to Ivanhoe's good news, Jaguar Mining Inc., a Toronto-based gold miner with operations in Brazil, released favorable third-quarter gold production data that positions the company to exceed their 2016 production target. As a result, shares rose 7.14 percent to 0.75 Canadian dollar (0.57 U.S. dollar).
The energy sector cooled down, with a 0.75 percent loss on the day, as energy giants Baytex Energy Corp. and Suncor Energy Inc. saw losses of 2.45 percent and 0.56 percent, respectively.
Brent crude oil prices gave up 1.14 percent for December delivery to close at 51.81 U.S. dollars a barrel in London.
The Canadian dollar closed the day at 0.7541 U.S. dollars, compared to Tuesday's closing rate of 0.7550 U.S. dollars.
