Toronto stocks closed moderately higher Tuesday. The S&P/TSX composite index ended up 21.17 points at 7,089.60.

Gains in the technology and industrial sectors overcame weakness in gold, energy and telecom issues.

The tech group led the charge, rising 2.56%, while the industrials sector gained 1.9%.

The consumer discretionary group gained 1.22%,. boosted by Magna International, which surged $6.02 to end at $99, after the company it is spinning off its wholly owned real estate unit to concentrate on its core auto-parts business.

In other news, Standard & Poor’s said that after the close of trading on Wednesday, July 9, Canada Life Financial Corp. will be removed from the S&P/TSX Composite, S&P/TSX Capped Composite, S&P/TSX MidCap, S&P/TSX Capped Financials and TSX 100 Indices. The move follows the company’s acquistion by Great-West Lifeco Inc.

Iamgold Corp. will replace Canada Life in the S&P/TSX MidCap Index and Angiotech Pharmaceuticals Inc. will replace Canada Life in the TSX 100 Index.

The Canadian Venture composite index gained 2.08 points to close at 1,107.31.

In New York, stocks also posted modest gains Tuesday, pushing the Nasdaq to a nearly 15-month high.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended up 6.3 points at 9,223.09. The broader S&P 500 Index rose 3.42 points to 1,007.84. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index gained 25.75 points to 1,746.46, its highest close since April 22, 2002.

The Canadian dollar fell hard against the U.S. dollar touching its lowest level in more than a month. The loonie ended the North American session at US73.29¢. cents, down from US74.22¢ at the previous close.