YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Stocks lacked direction for the entire session and, appropriately, finished in mixed fashion.

Overseas gains had offered mild support to stock prices this morning, but buying failed to generate any meaningful momentum before the open. Support waned with an uninspiring initial jobless claims count for the week ended January 1. Initial claims totaled 409,000, which is on par with the 405,000 initial claims that had been expected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com. Initial claims were up 18,000 from the prior week while continuing claims were down 50,000 from the prior week to 4.10 million.

December same-store sales disatisfied as only a few firms met or exceeded expectations. That left the lot of retailers to slide to a 1.6% loss. Target (TGT 54.93, -4.01) was among the worst performing retailers after it reported that its same-store sales increased by less than 1% during December. The stock found support at its 200-day average, which was last touched two months ago, but it still settled with its worst single-session loss in more than a year.

Telecom stocks were also shunned. In turn, the telecom sector lost 2.8%, which made it the worst performing sector of the session.

At the other end of the spectrum, tech scored a 0.9% gain, which made for the sector's fourth straight advance and puts it on pace for a 2.9% weekly gain. Semiconductor plays underpinned the sector's most recent advance. Semiconductor stocks collectively advanced 1.8%. Such strength also helped prop up the Nasdaq.

Though the negative correlation between the dollar and the stock market has diminished in recent days, the broader market ran into some late morning selling that coincided with a bounce by the greenback against the euro. The euro violated its 200-day moving average to set a one-month low after the release of a report that offered a framework for future eurozone bank failures in the eurozone. No report was issued on sovereign debt in the eurozone.

Commodities, save for livestock (-1.2%), sold off today. Grains (-2.1%) and industrials (-1.8%) led the way lower for the sector. Sugar futures fell 6.1% to close at $0.3024 per pound.

It was a quiet session for Feb gold and March silver, which closed lower by $2.00 to $1371.70 per ounce and 7.2 cents to $29.13 per ounce respectively. Despite sizeable strength in the dollar index, both metals closed near the flat line.

Feb crude oil shed 2.1% to end at $88.38 per barrel, closing sharply lower for the second time in two sessions. Since trading to fresh ~2 yrs highs earlier this month, crude oil prices have dropped over 4%. Feb natural gas ended down 1.1% to $4.43 per MMBtu after it gave back all of its gains from this morning's inventory data.

A stronger dollar certainly didn't help the case for commodities, which were clipped for further losses today. In broad terms, the CRB Commodity Index fell 1.3%. Crude oil prices tumbled 2.1% to settle at $88.38 per barrel. Natural gas prices logged a 1.1% loss at $4.43 per MMBtu after they had swung to a gain of more than 2% following news of a greater-than-expected draw of 135 bcf.

Advancing Sectors: Tech (+0.9%), Health Care (+0.4%)
Declining Sectors: Telecom (-2.8%), Consumer Discretionary (-0.7%), Energy (-0.7%), Financials (-0.6%), Materials (-0.4%), Consumer Staples (-0.4%), Industrials (-0.2%)
Unchanged: UtilitiesDJ30 -25.58 NASDAQ +7.69 SP500 -2.71 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1148/2.11 bln/1469 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1165/1.09 bln/1821