Canadian stock market dips slightly after last week's solid gain

The Canadian stock market fell slightly Monday following last week's strong gain and ahead of another busy corporate earnings week. The Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index closed 27.58 points lower, or 0.21 percent, to finish the day's trading at 13,371.84. Canadian traders will get earnings reports from a variety of heavy-weight stocks this week, including resource giants Suncor Energy, Canadian Oil Sands, Imperial Oil and First Quantum Resources. The stock market rallied last week as Canadian National Railway, Canadian Pacific and miners Goldcorp Inc. and Teck Resources helped push the main index for the Toronto Stock Exchange up over 1.2 percent. October has been positive for the Toronto Stock Exchange, which has been up seven percent so far this year as investors were encouraged by positive economic data from China and Europe. Commodity prices were mixed Monday. December crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange was up 0.8 percent to 98.63 U.S. dollars a barrel and the energy sector was down 0.58 percent. Canadian Natural Resources declined 1.89 percent to 32.69 Canadian dollars (31.38 U.S. dollars) a share. The metals and mining sector also lost 0.75 percent with December copper unchanged at 3.27 U.S. dollars a pound. Teck Resources moved down 2 percent to 29.67 Canadian dollars (28.48 U. S. dollars) a share. Financial stocks led advancers with Bank of Nova Scotia up 0.77 percent to 62.77 Canadian dollars (60.26 U.S. dollars) a share. Traders also looked to this week's U.S. Federal Reserve policy meeting amid speculation as to when the central bank will reduce its key monetary stimulus that has kept long term rates low and supported global stock markets. At closing, the Canadian dollar went up at 0.9575 U.S. dollars at 5 p.m. local time (2100 GMT) from 0.9572 U.S. dollars last Friday.