YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Stocks finished the day with modest losses after a choppy session, with commodities and related sectors pacing the downside. The decline in commodities comes despite weakness in dollar. Market participants also processed the latest dose of economic data, and prepared for the quarterly reports of a couple of bellwethers. While broad-based buying in the prior session sent the major averages to new two-year highs, the tone was less optimistic in today's trade.

Uninspiring initial jobless claims data set this tone before the open. For the week ended January 8, initial jobless claims totaled 445,000, which is more than the 415,000 expectation. Continuing claims dropped sharply to a two-year low of 3.88 million, but that is most likely due to the expiration of unemployment benefits... The Producer Price Index for December climbed a sharper-than-expected 1.1%, but core producer prices increased 0.2%, as had been expected... The November trade deficit received less attention. It totaled $38.3 billion, which is only slightly changed from the prior month.

Italy and Spain held the most recent auctions in a strong of successful sovereign debt offerings from the eurozone. While the results spurred Spain's IBEX sharply higher, the more widely-watched European bourses moved in mixed fashion as the European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of England (BOE) both left their target lending rates unchanged, as expected. The BOE and left its asset purchase plan unaltered, also as expected... A combination of successful bond auctions in higher-risk regions, along with comments from ECB President Trichet, helped the euro trade sharply higher vs. the dollar. The euro is actually up 1.6% to $1.335. That has helped drive down the Dollar Index to a ~1% loss.

Fed Chairman Bernanke also made some intraday comments on CNBC intraday, noting that risks are more balanced now, as opposed to the downside a few months ago, and that 3-4% growth in 2011 seems reasonable. His comments didn't seem to impact the market. Corporate news flow has been light today, but earnings season is beginning to pick up with tonight's earnings from Intel (INTC 21.25, -0.06), which just hit the wires. Shares are +0.40 at ~21.70 in after-hours after beating consensus on the top and bottom lines, and issuing upside revenue guidance for Q1. Tomorrow morning, all eyes will be on JPMorgan Chase's (JPM 44.49, -0.22) earnings report before the bell.

Outside of earnings, pharmaceutical giant Merck (MRK 34.65, -2.50) fell more than 6% following the company's statement on changes to the clinical studies for vorapaxar, an investigational cardiovascular medicine.

Commodities finished mixed today, as grains and industrials posted gains, while softs, energy, precious metals and livestock all lost ground.

Feb natural gas shed 2.8% to settle at $4.38 per MMBtu. Futures sold off throughout the session following this morning's inventory data, which showed a smaller than expected draw down. It closed just above its session lows at $4.37. Feb crude oil shed 0.5% to end at $91.40 after it sold off heading into the close. It spent most of the session chopping around the flat line.

Feb gold ended higher by 0.1% to $1387.00 per ounce, in what was a very uneventful session for the yellow metal. March silver shed 1.1% to end at $29.26 per ounce.

Advancing Sectors: Telecom (+0.4%), Consumer Staples (+0.3%), Industrials (+0.1%).

Declining Sectors: Materials (-0.9%), Utilities (-0.8%), Health Care (-0.6%), Financials (-0.3%), Energy (-0.3%), Tech (-0.2%), Consumer Discretionary (-0.2%).

DJ30 -23.54 NASDAQ -2.04 SP500 -2.20 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1136/1919861/1448 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1361/926773/1623