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(Reuters)
By Ka Yan Ng
TORONTO (Reuters) - Toronto's main stock index turned lower on Tuesday as commodity price pressures erased early strength in Barrick Gold and other gold miners, and oil and gas shares dropped as well.
Most of the biggest weights on the market came from resource-based issues as prices for gold and oil, key drivers of the commodity-heavy TSX, came off recent highs.
Gold slipped below $1,060 an ounce and drove Barrick down 0.77 percent to C$39.80, the second biggest heavyweight decliner on the index.
Five gold-mining stocks were among the top 10 most notable decliners at midday. Big decliners included Goldcorp , down 1.5 percent at C$43.15, and Kinross Gold , off 1.6 percent at C$23.51.
Suncor topped all decliners, falling 1.5 percent to C$39.55, and fellow oil company Canadian Natural Resources lost 1.9 percent to C$76.77. The price of oil fell from a one-year high over $80 a barrel.
At 12:59 p.m. (1659 GMT), the S&P/TSX composite index was down 24.28 points, or 0.21 percent, at 11,514.11. The index rose about 50 points earlier in the day as a handful of upbeat U.S. corporate earnings buoyed sentiment, but that was soon offset by disappointing U.S. data.
New construction of U.S. homes rose less than expected in September, while U.S. producer prices posted an unexpected decline, largely on falling energy prices.
"Weak economic data in turn weakens commodities and as a result, Canada is taking a pretty broad-based hit but we're not down a whole lot here," said Steve Ibel, institutional equities trader at Beacon Securities, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Some issues held higher, influenced by strong quarterly results from U.S. technology bellwether Apple and heavy machinery maker Caterpillar , which helped to lure investors into equities.
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion was up 0.6 percent at C$69.85. Shares of uranium miner Cameco Corp topped all advancers, rising 7.7 percent to C$32.81.
Before the market opened, the Bank of Canada reiterated its conditional pledge to keep its overnight interest rate at 0.25 percent through mid-2010.
($1=$1.05 Canadian)
(Editing by Peter Galloway)
