TORONTO (Reuters) - Toronto’s main stock index closed lower yesterday as retreating metals prices encouraged investors to take profits after the market’s recent run-up.

Half of the index’s 10 main groups were lower, with the hefty materials group, home to mining shares, leading the decliners and falling 1.32 percent after making gains in the past five sessions.

Gold miners sagged as gold prices, which hit a record high early in the day, fell on profit-taking. Kinross Gold slid 2.74 percent to C$18.84, and Goldcorp fell 1.66 percent to C$47.36.

Base metals miner Teck Resources slipped 0.92 percent to C$56.20 as copper prices, which rose to a record high above $9,000 a ton early in the session, also eased.

“We got a little too far, too fast. Things like gold, silver and copper we’ve been setting new highs almost on a daily basis for the past week, so certainly we’re due for a bit of a pause,” said Levente Mady, a market strategist at Union Securities.

The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index finished 25.34 points, or 0.19 percent, lower at 13,250.67.

“It’s been a very positive market so I certainly am not going to complain about a slightly down market,” said Ian Nakamoto, director of research at MacDougall, MacDougall & MacTier. “I think people want to say, ‘Enough is enough...I want to have a good profit, let’s not let it slip out of my hands’.”

After hitting its highest level since September 2, 2008, shortly after the open, the index seesawed through the remainder of the day as gains among energy issues offset losses among the miners.

Energy shares finished higher for a fifth straight session, up 0.4 percent. Leading the charge was Canada’s biggest energy company, Suncor Energy, which climbed 1.64 percent to C$36.66. Talisman Energy rose 1.13 percent to C$20.54.

“That sector’s really lagged and it’s only recently that it’s really started to move up. I’ve felt for a while that it was an undervalued sector,” Nakamoto said.