(Updates with market opening prices)

By Ragini Mathur

Jan 29 (Reuters) – Canada’s main stock index rose on Wednesday led by mining shares, as investors cheered the Bank of Canada’s decision to cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point.

The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index was up 0.3% at 25,502.94, its highest level since December 12.

The Bank of Canada

cut its key policy rate

by 25 basis points to 3%, lowered its growth forecast to 1.8% in 2025 from the 2.1% predicted in October and warned Canadians that a tariff war triggered by the U.S. could cause major economic damage.

Wednesday’s decision was the sixth consecutive time the Bank of Canada lowered interest rates, reducing them by a total of 2 percentage points over seven months.

“As we work through all of these challenges with the U.S. and political uncertainty, the Bank of Canada’s in there trying to support the economy as they can and that’s probably also helping to support the market as well,” said Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at SIA Wealth Management.

On Tuesday, the White House said U.S. President Donald Trump still plans to hit Mexico and Canada with tariffs on Saturday.

Among sectors, metal mining shares led the gains on Wednesday by rising over 1%, supported by silver mining companies as they tracked strength in the precious metal.

Information Technology also gained 0.5% as it continued previous session’s rebound after a major selloff on Monday.

Later in the day, the U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to end a three-meeting run of rate cuts and stay on hold, but investors will be eager to get a sense of what it makes of Trump’s eventful first nine days back in charge.

Since resuming office last week, Trump has expressed his desire for lower rates and reiterated that he believes the Fed should consider his views.

Among individual stocks, MDA Space fell 16.7% to the bottom of TSX.

(Reporting by Ragini Mathur in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed)