Toronto market takes a pause after notching a record intraday high

By Fergal Smith

(Reuters) -Canada's main stock index ended lower on Wednesday, weighed by declines for industrials and heavily weighted financial shares, as investors took stock of recent gains for the market that lifted it to a record intraday high.

The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index ended down 32.44 points, or 0.1%, at 24,001.55, after touching a record high of 24,113.27 earlier in the day.

On Tuesday, the TSX notched a record closing high as escalating tensions in the Middle East led to a jump in oil prices, boosting energy shares.

The index climbed 9.7% in the third quarter, its largest quarterly gain in nearly four years.

"It looks like it's taking a bit of a breather after the tremendous run we had in Q3," said Elvis Picardo, a portfolio manager at Luft Financial, iA Private Wealth.

"It's been a pretty good run for the indices so far but you have not just geopolitical risk but Q3 earnings ... That might be a key catalyst for which way the markets go from here."

Financials, which account for 31% of the TSX's weighting, fell 0.3%, while industrials ended 0.4% lower as railroad shares lost ground.

Consumer staples was down 1.4% and real estate, which tends to be particularly sensitive to the interest rate outlook, declined 0.8%.

The Canadian 10-year yield climbed 8.1 basis points to 3.027% as recent upbeat U.S. data tempered expectations for another supersized interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve next month.

Information technology helped limit the Toronto market's decline, rising 0.6%, and energy added 0.2% as the price of oil settled 0.4% higher at $70.10 a barrel.

(Reporting by Fergal Smith in Toronto and Nikhil Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo and Sandra Maler)