CANADA STOCKS-TSX climbs to record high, helped by Middle East ceasefire optimism

By Fergal Smith

June 24 (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index rose to a record high on Tuesday, led by financial and technology shares, as investors cheered a cooling of Middle East tensions and found reassurance in domestic inflation data.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index .GSPTSE ended up 109.26 points, or 0.4%, at 26,718.62, eclipsing the record closing high it posted on June 12.

"It's riding on the coattails of what's come out recently in the Middle East," said Allan Small, senior investment advisor of the Allan Small Financial Group with iA Private Wealth.

"All of a sudden we went from everything around us was negative, to positive once again. That's how fast things can turn and a good example to why investors can't run and hide, (can't) try and time markets."

Wall Street also rallied as investors welcomed a fragile truce with Israel and Iran while parsing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's congressional testimony for clues regarding the U.S. central bank's path forward.

Canada's annual inflation rate in May was unchanged from the previous month, at 1.7%, as a drop in gasoline costs continued to keep the overall index stable while prices of shelter, food and transportation also cooled.

"The CPI numbers they weren't anything that I thought anyway to be nervous about," Small said.

The heavily weighted financials sector rose 1%, while technology ended 2.5% higher, helped by a gain of 4% for e-commerce company Shopify SHOP.TO.

Commodity-linked stocks were a drag. The energy sector .SPTTEN lost 1.5% as the price of oil settled 6% lower at $64.37 a barrel on expectations that the ceasefire will reduce the risk of oil supply disruptions in the Middle East.

Energy producers in Alberta , Canada's top oil-producing province, blew past the province's self-imposed limit on annual natural gas flaring in 2024 for a second year in a row, Reuters calculations show.

Safe-haven gold XAU= also declined, falling 2.5%. The materials sector, which includes metal mining shares, was down 1.7%.