Canadian stock market inches lower as miners weigh

Canada's main stock market in Toronto lost ground Monday following a seven-day advance as the miner shares weighed on the market sentiment.

Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index was down 4.84 points, or 0.03 percent, to 15,383.59 points.

Metals and mining, a heavily weighted sector in TSX, tumbled 2. 25 percent as falling commodities demands from China triggered concerns. Official data showed Chinese exports increased 4.9 percent while the import fell 15 fell 17 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to the data released Monday by the General Administration of Customs on Monday.

The data released by China Railway Corp. on Monday also showed that railways transported 870 million tonnes of cargo in the first quarter of the year, down 9 percent year on year, adding to a slew of other economic indicators showing weakness in the economy.

Canada's biggest basic metals producer Teck Resources Ltd. plunged 3.76 percent to 16.65 Canadian dollars (about 13.22 U.S. dollars), and another leading company First Quantum Minerals lost 3.15 percent to 15.68 Canadian dollars.

Industrials was down 0.47 percent when the aircraft and railway maker Bombardier Inc. declined 1.52 percent to 2.6 Canadian dollars per share. Bombardier is usually one of the Toronto market 's most active issues, has withered as much as 38 percent since the beginning of this year, due to its delays in CSeries commercial jet progress.

And other gainers included Financials and Energy, up 0.28 percent and 0.03 respectively, whose gains were offset by the losses from Health Care, down 0.47 percent.

On the economic front, Statistics Canada reported Friday morning that retail sales rose 4.1 percent to 133.8 billion Canadian dollars in the fourth quarter in 2014 on a year-over-year basis.

On the currency front, the Canadian dollar on Monday traded lower at 0.7942 U.S. dollar, compared with 0.7949 U.S. dollar on last Friday.