By Rashika Singh
March 10 (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index edged higher on Tuesday, after U.S. President Donald Trump's hints that the Middle East conflict could end soon sent gold prices and mining shares up even as plunging crude oil rates weighed the energy sector down.
At 11:03 a.m. ET, the S&P/TSX Composite Index was up 0.85% at 33,473.03 points, with four of the 10 major sectors in the green.
TSX's materials index, which includes precious metal miners, jumped 1.6% supported by elevated gold
prices and was set for its best day in more than a week.
Spot gold was up around 1.4%.
Energy stocks, meanwhile, were down 0.2%, pressured by a nearly 10% drop in oil prices.
While Trump said on Monday that the conflict could end sooner than his earlier four- to five-week timeline, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and top general Dan Caine said on Tuesday that U.S. strikes on Iran were intensifying.
Analysts at BofA Global Research said in a note they now expect the Bank of Canada to hold rates at 2.25% through 2026, scrapping their earlier call for two 25-basis-point cuts this year.
The surge in oil prices linked to the Iran conflict could lift both growth and inflation, leaving policymakers with little room to ease rates, they said.
"While we do not expect rate hikes given anchored expectations and weak growth, the bar for cuts has risen meaningfully."
Meanwhile, in other notable moves, the technology index fell 2.4%, dragged down by a near 5% fall in supply chain technology provider Descartes Systems Group.
The industrials sector fell 1.5%, with Thomson Reuters declining 6.5%.
Air Canada was down 2% after Scotiabank downgraded the stock to "sector perform" from "sector outperform".
Canadian investment firm Fairfax Financial rose 2% after agreeing to a $1.91 billion sale of part of its stake in Poseidon Corp.
(Reporting by Rashika Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Jonathan Ananda)
