The Canadian stock market's main index suffered the biggest one-day loss in 10 months and hit a five-month low on Monday as shares of Canada's biggest gold miners plunged.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index tumbled 332.71 points, or 2.7 percent, to 12,004.26 while the S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index dropped 64.35 points, or 2.3 percent, to 958.26. With resource stocks making up around 40 percent of the main index, the commodity-based Canadian stock market suffered severely from falling commodity prices on Monday.

Weighing by the weak-than-expected Chinese economic data, which showed that Chinese economy grew by 7.7 percent in the first quarter, gold fell to its lowest level in two years and wider commodity prices also declined following news from China.

Barrick Gold Corp, the world's biggest producer of gold, plunged 11.5 percent to 20.30 Canadian dollars per share as the price of gold plummeted.

Other major Canadian gold producers also fell sharply, with Goldcorp down 5.6 percent to 28.38 Canadian dollars per share and Kinross Gold Corp losing 13.6 percent to 5.54 Canadian dollars per share.

Copper price also hit a new year-low. Teck Resources, a major Canadian producer of copper, plunged 1.99 Canadian dollars, or over 7 percent, to 26.15 Canadian dollars per share. Oil prices also slumped as weak Chinese data raised concerns about the global economic outlook. The energy sector on the Canadian stock market' s main index tumbled about 4 percent. Suncor Energy, Canada's largest energy company, fell 4.6 percent to 27.50 Canadian dollars per share.

At closing, the Canadian dollar moved down to 0.9750 U.S. dollars at 5 p.m. local time (2100 GMT), compared with 0.9867 U.S. dollars last Friday. Endi

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