(Adds portfolio manager quote, details on materials stocks,
updates prices)
* TSX ends down 23.17 points, or 0.18 percent, at 12,740.27
* Five of the TSX's 10 main groups end lower
By Fergal Smith
TORONTO, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index fell
to a one-week low on Wednesday as weaker-than-expected bank
earnings dragged down financial stocks, but higher crude oil
prices helped pare some of the losses, providing support for
energy stocks.
The biggest movers on the index were bank stocks after Royal
Bank of Canada RY.TO posted quarterly earnings which fell
short of analyst forecasts.
RBC , Canada's second-largest lender by assets, was hurt by
weakness in its insurance and capital markets businesses, while
it also showed increasing signs of pain from the oil price crash
and economic slowdown in Western Canada.
Its stock fell 2.6 percent to C$67.81, and Toronto-Dominion
Bank TD.TO declined 1.8 percent to C$51.23. The overall
financials group fell 1.6 percent.
"We are starting to see where the loan losses on the oil
patch fit in," said John Kinsey, a portfolio manager at Caldwell
Securities.
He expects more impaired loans to become loan losses,
providing a headwind for the stocks
The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index
.GSPTSE fell 23.17 points, or 0.18 percent, at 12,740.27. It
hit its lowest since Feb. 16 at 12,506.05.
Five of the index's 10 main groups ended lower.
The energy group rose 1.3 percent as crude oil prices
reversed course after strong demand for gasoline offset worries
about record high crude inventories. O/R
U.S. crude CLc1 prices settled at $32.15 a barrel, up 0.88
percent.
The shares of energy producer Encana Corp ECA.TO ECA.N
surged 22.7 percent to C$5.09 after the company cut its 2016
capital spending forecast to less than half its 2015 expenditure
and said it would lay off 20 percent of its workforce this year.
The materials group, which includes precious and base metals
miners and fertilizer companies, rose slightly, up 0.1 percent.
Fertilizer company Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc
POT.TO rose 3.1 percent to C$22.66. But Teck Resources Ltd
TCKb.TO fell 7.5 percent to C$7.67 and gold miners were mixed.