By Commodity News Service Canada

WINNIPEG, Dec. 27 (CNS Canada) – The Canadian dollar was down at market close Thursday despite the Toronto Stock Exchange ended trading up by 2.79 per cent.
The dollar closed at US$0.7331 or US$1=C$1.3641, which compares with Monday’s close of US$0.7359 or C$1.3589.
In trading after the Christmas and Boxing Day break, the S&P/TSX Composite Index closed Thursday at 14,165.21 up by 385.02 points.
For much of Thursday market trading in the United States witnessed steep drops after huge increases on Wednesday. However, trading rallied to finish the day on the plus side as the NASDAQ increased by 0.38 per cent and the S&P500 was up by 0.85 per cent. The Dow Jones saw a turn-around of more than 600 points to end the day up by 1.13 per cent.

Oil was down Thursday as West Texas Intermediate crude oil slipped by 58 cents to close at US$45.64 per barrel.
Gold was up Thursday by US$5.20 to US$1,274.20 per ounce.

Canada’s agricultural sector faired as follows:

AGT Food and Ingredients———dn $ 0.14 at $ 15.53
Buhler Industries—————-unchanged at $ 3.60
Linamar Corp.——————–up $ 0.48 at $ 45.13
Maple Leaf Foods—————–up $ 0.67 at $ 27.15
Nutrien Ltd.———————up $ 4.42 at $ 64.39
Ritchie Bros Auctioneers Inc.—-up $ 1.62 at $ 44.00
Rocky Mountain Dealerships Inc.–up $ 0.16 at $ 8.45

(All figures are in Canadian dollars.)