YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: The January jobs report did little to spark traders into action today. That made for a largely lackluster session full of sideways chop, until a late bit of buying helped the three major equity averages set fresh two-year closing highs.

The only piece of data on today's calendar was the official payrolls report for for January. Nonfarm payrolls reportedly increased by 36,000, but that is considerably less than the 148,000 additions that had been expected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com. Private payrolls increased by only 50,000, which is far from the 163,000 additions had been widely expected.

However, the headline unemployment rate fell sharply to 9.0% from 9.4% in December. It had been expected to increase to 9.5%. Many attribute the drop in the unemployment rate to changes in prevailing population estimates and inclement weather.

Average hourly earnings made a surprise increase of 0.4%, which is the strongest monthly spike since 2008. The threat of wage inflation stirred a specter related to broader inflation, which acted as an additional catalyst in the five-day slide suffered by Treasuries -- the yield on the benchmark 10-year Note hit a multi-month high of 3.65% today.

Stocks were without clear of leadership for the third straight session. Despite that, the broader market still mustered another gain, which propped the S&P 500 up by 2.7%. That makes for the stock market's best weekly performance in nine weeks.

Although broad market action was largely lackluster, semiconductor stocks has an impressive session. The group spiked 2.1% and is already up 12.5% year-to-date. Strength among semiconductor plays made tech (+0.8%) the strongest sector of the session and gave the Nasdaq a lead over its counterparts.

There weren't a whole lot of earnings to digest, but news of an upside earnings surprise, upside guidance, and a dividend hike from Aetna (AET 37.42, +4.15) helped shares of the health care benefits provider stage strongest single-session surge in more than a year. The stock settled at its best level in 27 months.

Lack of motivation among investors made for unimpressive share volume once again. Specifically, trading volume on the NYSE failed to exceed 1 billion shares for the third straight session.

The Dollar Index advanced 0.3% for its third straight gain. It still ended logged a fractional loss for the week, though.

Commodities finished mixed on the session, with grains, precious metals, and livestock posting modest gains, while energy, softs and industrials all moved to the downside.

March crude oil shed 1.7% to settle at $89.03 per barrel. Prices dropped sharply in mid-morning trade, giving up modest gains and breaking below the $89 level to notch lows at $88.45 per barrel. The sell off in crude coincided with chatter that Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak would resign ahead of his last day in September. That was never confirmed and prices bounced modestly into the close. For the week, crude dropped 0.4%. March natural gas closed off 0.4% to $4.31 per MMBtu.

April gold finished lower by 0.3% to $1349.50 per ounce, while March silver ended higher by 1.1% to $29.01 per ounce.

Advancing Sectors: Tech (+0.8%), Consumer Discretionary (+0.7%), Consumer Staples (+0.5%), Health Care (+0.5%), Industrials (+0.3%)
Unchanged: Financial, Materials, Telecom
Declining Sectors: Utilities (-0.6%), Energy (-0.3%)DJ30 +29.89 NASDAQ +15.42 NQ100 +0.7% R2K +0.2% SP400 +0.6% SP500 +3.77 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1255/1.97 bln/1349 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1477/919 mln/1492