Technology stocks led North American equity markets higher Thursday after an upbeat profit report from U.S. software maker Oracle Corp. and ahead of earnings from Canada's Research in Motion Ltd. The S&P/TSX composite index climbed 17.19 points to 13,407.01, as gains among tech, metal, mining and materials outweighed a drop in the financial sector. Shares of RIM rose 4.34 per cent to $106.52 in Toronto. After the close of trading, the Waterloo, Ont.-based Blackberry maker said that third-quarter sales soared 100 per cent from a year ago while profit more than doubled to $370.5-million (U.S.) or 65 cents a share. The better-than-expected results sent RIM's U.S.-traded stock up 11 per cent in late trading. On Wall Street, the Dow industrials closed 38.37 points higher at 13,245.64, while the Nasdaq climbed 39.85 points and the S&P 500 rose 7.12 points. MBIA, the world's largest bond insurer, plunged 26 per cent after it disclosed billions in collateralized debt obligations it insures, including a large exposure to risky bonds. The disclosure, which could set off a chain reaction leading to larger writedowns at other banks, rattled equity markets and weighed on financial stocks on both sides of the border. Oracle shares jumped 6.45 per cent, boosting the Nasdaq, after it reported higher earnings on robust software sales and forecast revenue that topped earlier expectations. "Tech has been strong all day," Bennett Gaeger, managing director at Stifel Nicolaus in Baltimore, told Reuters. "Oracle was a big one, and that really put the bid back into the sector. And I think with Oracle being such a bellwether, its strong outlook relieved some of the worries about recession."