Toronto stocks eked out a small gain Tuesday after getting a late afternoon boost from gold issues. The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 14.78, or 0.16%, at 8,952.00, on volume of 257 million shares.

Overall market performance was mixed with six of the 10 TSX groups posting gains.

The industrials group led with a 0.6% gain. The materials sector, home to gold stocks, advanced 0.4%.

The gold sub-index climbed nearly 2% as gold futures remained above US$444 an ounce.

Barrick Gold jumped 42¢, or 1.5%, to $27.95, while Kinross Gold reclaimed yesterday’s losses, rising 36¢, or 3.8%, to $9.86.

Technology stocks dropped 0.4%. They were led by a 0.80% drop in Nortel Networks Corp., which was hit by more negative news that a former manager says he tried to blow the whistle on accounting irregularities as far back as 1999. Other tech decliners included Research in Montion, which finished down 1.41%, and Celestica, off 0.90%.

The TSX’s consumer discretionary group was also off, down 0.46%, led by an 8.16% drop in Alliance Atlantis shares. They were off despite reporting stronger earnings for the three months ended Sept. 30.

The heavily weighted financial group rose 0.23%. Sun Life Financial shares gained 0.89% ,after the insurer which forecast 10% annual growth in earnings and said it plans to accelerate a share buyback program.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index finished up 5.48 points, or 0.33%, at 1,660.08.

U.S. stocks ended lower Tuesday as a stronger-than-expected rise in wholesale inflation sparked concern about the pace and size of future interest rate hikes, with disappointment over Wal-Mart’s third-quarter sales performance further undermining sentiment.

The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average fell 65.59 points, or 0.59%, to close at 10,487.65.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index slipped 15.47 points, or 0.74%, to finish at 2.078.62.

The broader S&P 500 shed 8.38 points, or 0.71%, to end at 1,175.43.