Canadian stock market slides as Blackberry denies Samsung's takeover offer

Canada's main stock market in Toronto moved down Thursday over a selloff in shares of information technology as Canadian smartphone maker Blackberry denied a media report that South Korean electronics giant Samsung was making a takeover offer.

Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index was down 42.61 points, or 0.3 percent, to 14,041.82 points, with the information technology sector leading the decline by 2.78 percent.

Thursday witnessed another downturn of the stock market over the turbulence of Blackberry's share price, as the company denied Samsung's takeover offer after the closing bell Wednesday. According to news reports, Samsung recently offered to buy BlackBerry for as much as 7.5 billion U.S. dollars, which boosted Blackberry's stock price Wednesday.

BlackBerry dived 19.57 percent to 12.08 Canadian dollars (about 10.10 U.S. dollars) Thursday, following a jump of 29.48 percent Wednesday.

The energy sector decreased 1.15 percent with oil prices remaining sluggish. Suncor Energy Inc. plummeted 1.86 percent to 34.22 Canadian dollars and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. gave back 0.31 percent to 32.65 Canadian dollars.

Industrials lost 1.42 percent as Bombardier Inc. dived 25.85 percent to 3.07 Canadian dollars, after the transportation giant announced to pause its Learjet 85 business aircraft program and cut 1,000 jobs.

Financials, the index's most heavily weighted sector, was down 0.89 percent when Toronto-Dominion Bank dropped 1.21 percent to 49. 94 Canadian dollars.

However, the metals and mining sector rebounded 0.29 percent after the selloff for the last four straight sessions, when gold shares rallied as February bullion contract gained 30.3 U.S. dollars to a four-month high of 1,264.8 dollars per ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Goldcorp Inc. jumped 10.94 percent to 27.18 Canadian dollars and Barrick Gold Corp. climbed 9.75 percent to 13.62 Canadian dollars.

Basic metals also advanced, with First Quantum Minerals Ltd. adding 2.14 percent to 11.95 Canadian dollars. On the economic front, the Canadian Real Estate Association reported that the housing prices inched up an average 3.8 percent on an annual basis to 405,233 Canadian dollars in December, representing the smallest increase since May 2013.

According to a report released Thursday by Bank of Montreal, Canada's housing market continues to look balanced on a national basis. The slide in oil prices has begun to weigh in Calgary and Edmonton, but Vancouver and Toronto look very solid.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar closed lower Thursday to 0.8358 U.S. dollar from 0.8372 U.S. dollar Wednesday.