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Toronto Stock Exchange closes down 23 points or 0.09%

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Market fell almost a percentage point in early trade

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Energy stocks up 0.87%, mining stocks gain up 0.1%

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Barrick Gold ( GOLD ) shares up 2.5% after Mali government deal

(New throughout)

By Promit Mukherjee and Pranav Kashyap

Feb 19 (Reuters) -

Canada's main stock index closed marginally lower on

Wednesday, after a global equity sell-off was largely cushioned

by energy shares, recovery in mining stocks and minutes of the

U.S. Federal Reserve's January meeting.

The S&P/TSX Composite index lost 0.09%, or

close to 22.68 points, to end at 25,626.16.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced

tariffs on automotive imports

"in the neighborhood of 25%" and said that more details

will be revealed on April 2. Duties will be slapped on

pharmaceutical and semiconductor imports, he added.

Asian and European markets closed sharply lower on

Wednesday, with the pan-European STOXX 600 index

falling 0.9%

, its biggest single-day drop this year.

U.S. shares

closed higher in a rebound after the Federal Reserve

released the

minutes of its meeting

, with the S&P 500 posting its second straight all-time

closing high.

Fed policymakers expressed concern about U.S. economic

growth due to Trump's policies, the minutes showed.

"The big picture here is that the markets continue to

exhibit a surprising degree of resilience to all the headline

risk," said Elvis Picardo, portfolio manager at Luft Financial,

iA Private Wealth.

Investors in this bull market do not want to miss any

buying opportunity, he said.

Some analysts said the Fed's concerns on growth hint at

a potential interest rate cut, boosting investor optimism.

In Canada, the financial sector, with a weight

of nearly one-third of the composite index, lost 0.27%. Royal

Bank of Canada ( RY ), the biggest company by market

capitalization, fell 0.02%.

The sell-off was largely softened by energy stocks

, which rose 0.87% as oil prices held near a one-week

high of $76 per barrel on worries about supply disruptions in

Russia and the U.S.

Mining stocks also helped to contain the slide in the

main index, led by higher gold prices and an over 2.5% jump in

Barrick Gold ( GOLD ) shares.

Reuters reported that the

miner has signed

a new agreement with the Mali government to end an almost

two-year-old dispute over its mining assets.