Toronto stocks closed lower on Thursday thanks to an weak U.S. May retail sales report and a revenue warning from telecoms equipment maker Lucent.

The S&P/TSX index fell 75.96 points to a seven-month low of 7,283.60, led lower by a sharp 3.5% plunge in technology stocks and a near 3% drop in gold issues.

Lucent rival Nortel Networks closed down 19¢ at $2.45. Electronics manufacturer Celestica fell $1.21 to$38.36.

Gold stocks slumped on profit taking. Barrick Gold was down 93¢ at $29.31, while Placer Dome shed 70¢ to $18.30.

Manulife Financial shares fell 45¢ to $42.90. Manulife denied that its Indonesia unit was bankrupt, calling the judge who made that declaration “corrupt.”

Sun Life Financial fell 51¢ to $34.19. It signed a $250-million IT outsourcing deal with IBM.

Market momentum was negative as 634 issues declined and 449 advanced on a slim volume of 212 million shares worth $2.78 billion.

In other market news, Standard & Poor’s is dropping 23 stocks from S&P/TSX composite index because they no longer meet the more stringent requirements for membership in the index.

Among the companies to be dropped are 724 Solutions, Certicom, FPI Limited, 360Networks, and Microcell Telecommunications.

Three companies will also see their shares added to Canada’s benchmark index — Shoppers Drug Mart, Bema Gold, and Ivanhoe Mining. The revisions will be made on Friday, June 21.

The TSX Venture Exchange lost 9.50 points to 1,183.81

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 114.91 points to 9,502.80. The Nasdaq, hit by revenue warning from tech industry bellwether Lucent Technologies, was down 22.23 points at 1,496.89.

Investors were particularly concerned about a 0.9% drop in U.S. retail sales in May. Excluding autos, sales were down 0.4%.

The Canadian dollar drifted lower, off 0.14¢ at US64.97¢.