Canadian Stocks Notably Lower In Cautious Trade

(RTTNews) - The Canadian market is down in negative territory Tuesday morning with stocks from several sectors losing ground on sustained selling pressure as investors await key U.S. economic data and the Federal Reserve's monetary policy announcement for directional clues.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index is down 148.48 points or 0.67% at 21,921.28.

Materials, healthcare and financials stocks are among the major losers.

Stelco Holdings and Cameco Corporation are down 4.1% and 3.9%, respectively. Nutrien (NTR.TO), Teck Resources (TECK.A.TO), Constellation Software (CSU.TO), Franco-Nevada Corporation (FNV.TO), TFI International (TFII.TO), goeasy (GSY.TO) and Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO) are lower by 1 to 3%.

Novagold (NG.TO), Lundin Mining (LUN.TO), Algoma Steel (ASTL.TO), B2Gold Corp (BTO.TO) and Interfor Corp (IFP.TO) are down 3 to 4.2%.

Healthcare stocks Tilray Inc (TLRY.TO) and Bausch Health Companies (BHC.TO) are losing 2% and 2.2%, respectively.

CI Financial Corp (CIX.TO), Power Corporation of Canada (POW.TO), Sprott Inc (SII.TO), Manulife Financial (MFC.TO) and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CM.TO) are down 1 to 2.3%.

Copperleaf Technologies Inc (CPLF.TO) is soaring 17%. announced that it has signed a deal with Industrial and Financial Systems as per which the latter will indirectly acquire all of the outstanding common shares of Copperleaf at $12 a share.

Fairfax Financial Holdings Inc (FFH.TO) announced that it has raised its stake in Ensign Energy Services (ESI.TO), buying 3.79 million shares of Ensign, at a price of $2.34 per share (Monday's closing price). Fairfax Financial is up marginally, while Ensign shares are down 2.5%.

On the economic front, data from Statistics Canada showed that building permits in Canada increased to 20.5% (month-on-month) in April from -12.3% in March.