TORONTO (Reuters) — The Toronto Stock Exchange’s main index handed back early gains to close slightly lower, torn between sinking material producers and buoyant stocks such as Biovail Corp.The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 6.06 points, or 0.05 percent, at 12,889.84, breaking a five-session winning streak. Overall, only three of the composite index’s ten main groups were down, but those included the heavyweight energy sector.

The index is now about 110 points shy of the 13,000 mark, and has so far suggested it will repeat the historic pattern of a bullish December.

The day’s star was drugmaker Biovail, which climbed C$2.14, or 9.9 percent, to C$23.70 after unveiling plans to triple its dividend and pay off debt in preparation for challenges from copycat drugs.

The small TSX health-care sector spiked 2.8 percent on the news, its biggest jump in several months.

Pulling in the opposite direction, gold producers slipped for a second day as bullion and base metal prices focused on slowing demand.

“The risk in the market is more to the cyclical factors, the commodity-based ones and particularly the metals, which are a little frothy here,” said Rick Hutcheon, president and chief operating officer at RKH Investments.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a meaningful consolidation in the sector.”

The materials sector was down 0.7 percent while its gold subsector lost 1.5 percent. Goldcorp was off 80 Canadian cents, or 2.3 percent, at C$34.15, and Barrick Gold skidded 41 Canadian cents, or 1.2 percent, to C$34.90.

Natural gas futures recovered after a four-day slide but crude oil futures eased, leaving Canada’s energy producers split between advancers such as EnCana, up 1.2 percent, and decliners like Suncor Energy, down 0.7 percent.

Elsewhere in the oil patch, Synenco Energy Inc., which holds a 60 percent stake in the Northern Lights project, said costs for a planned oil sands mine and extraction plant in Alberta have more than doubled.

The company’s stock tumbled C$1.38, or 8.6 percent, to C$14.61.