YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: A late bid helped the stock market muster a modest gain after it had spent most of the session mired in negative territory.

Today's headlines did little to drive overall trade. Market participants shrugged off news that initial jobless claims for the week ended January 29 totaled 415,000, down from the prior week's tally of 457,000 and less than the 425,000 initial claims had been expected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com. The four-week moving average was hardly changed at 430,500.

Nonfarm productivity for the fourth quarter proved surprisingly strong. It increased 2.6%, which is better than the 2.2% increase that had been widely expected. The increase was helped by a 0.6% drop in unit labor costs, which had actually been expected to increase 0.1%.

The ISM nonmanufacturing Composite for January climbed to 59.4, which is not only better than the 57.0 that had been expected, but also the best reading since 2005.

Factory orders for December increased 0.2% after a 1.3% increase in the prior month. Economists had called for a 0.6% decline, on average.

Strong earnings helped a few individual names, but the rest of the market was mostly uninspired by results. Both Visa (V 71.63, -0.46) and MasterCard (MA 245.39, +6.00) posted upside earnings surprises, but their shares diverged. The rest of the financial sector was also mixed; it finished with a fractional gain.

Health care plays swung from a loss of about 1% to a fractional gain. Cardinal Health (CAH 42.31, +0.62) posted an upside surprise of its own, as did Merck (MRK 32.90, -0.92) and CIGNA (CI 42.56, +0.30), but the latter two issued downside guidance.

Retailers rode a sizable batch of stronger-than-expected same-store sales results to a 1.3% gain. BJ's Wholesale (BJ 48.25, +5.24) was one of the best performers, thanks partly to its 2.7% increase in same-store sales results for January, but mostly because the company announced that it will explore strategic alternatives, including selling the company.

Even though there was a barrage of headlines, stocks traded listlessly for most of the session. There was a midmorning flurry of selling that took stocks past the prior session's low, but a rebound took hold once the S&P 500 secured support at the 1295 line. Stocks then spent about three hours drifting sideways along the neutral line before a bit of late buying helped take stocks into positive territory. The move helped the S&P 500 offset its loss in the prior session, but gave the Dow a fractionally improved two-year closing high.

The dollar made its biggest bounce in almost one month by gaining 0.9% against a basket of competing currencies. It had a slow start to the day, but really started to move after European Central Bank (ECB) President Trichet took a relatively dovish stance on inflation following the ECB's decision to leave its benchmark target rate at 1.00%. FOMC Chairman Bernanke stated in a speech today that the recovery has strengthened, but not enough to significantly reduce unemployment.

Outside of precious metals (+1.7%), commodities finished largely lower on the session, led by a 1.8% sell off in softs. May sugar shed 9%, to close at $0.3090 per pound, following news that Cyclone Yasi was downgraded to a Category 1 cyclone after it made landfall in Australia yesterday. Australia produces about 3% of the world's sugar. Yesterday, sugar prices rallied to their best levels since Nov of 1980 on concerns over the potential impact of Yasi.

March natural gas shed 1.9% to close at $4.34 per MMBtu, following this morning's inventory data which showed an inline drawn down. It attempted to recoup losses following the data, but had little success and ended the day near its session lows. March crude oil finished quietly lower by 0.4% to $90.54 per barrel.

April gold finished higher by 1.6% to $1353.00 per ounce, while March silver rallied for 1.8% to end at $28.72 per ounce.

Advancing Sectors: Consumer Discretionary (+1.2%), Telecom (+0.9%), Consumer Staples (+0.4%), Materials (+0.4%), Utilities (+0.2%), Energy (+0.1%), Health Care (+0.1%), Financial (+0.1%)
Unchanged: Industrials, Tech
Declining Sectors: (None)DJ30 +20.29 NASDAQ +4.32 NQ100 +0.1% R2K -0.3% SP400 -0.3% SP500 +3.07 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1297/1.95 bln/1309 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1606/998 mln/1357