YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Another round of broad buying drove stocks to new two-year highs. Share volume was unimpressive, though.

Stocks made a quick move higher in the early going. Strong gains by Europe's bourses had helped to provide a positive backdrop in the absence of any domestic data. Merger and acquisition activity also acted as a boon as many thought it an encouraging sign that deals are being made even as stocks trade at their best levels in more than two years.

Pride International (PDE 39.80, +5.41) will be purchased with a mix of cash and stock for $41.60 per share, a premium of about 21% over its closing price last week, by Ensco (ESV 52.13, -2.28). That announcement helped stoke buying in other offshore drillers and exploratory plays.

Beckman Coulter (BEC 82.65, +7.48) will be acquired with cash by Danaher (DHR 49.03, +1.05) for $83.50 per share, a premium of about 11% over its closing price last week.

AOL (AOL 21.19, -0.75) announced it will acquire Huffington Post for $315 million in a mostly cash transaction. The deal comes after AOL had announced better-than-expected earnings last week.

Financials were this session's best performers; they climbed 1.5%. The move was largely led by multi-line insurers like Loews Corp (L 43.27, +1.87), which posted an upside earnings surprise for its latest quarter.

Humana (HUM 58.74, -1.80) was also out with earnings, but its results came short of the consensus forecast. An improved outlook from the firm failed to offset the offense.

While buying lifted the broader market to its best level since mid-2008, there wasn't a lot of share volume behind the move. In fact, share volume on the NYSE failed to break 900 million.

Today's only piece of data was released late in the afternoon. It indicated that consumer credit during December increased by $6.09 billion, which is far more than the $2.50 billion increase that had been expected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com. Consumer credit for November had increased by $2.02 billion.

An appetite for risk had initially helped to renew pressure against Treasuries so that yields climbed to levels not seen since May, but they were able to rebound. The benchmark 10-year Note still finished with a fractional loss, but the 30-year Bond scored its first gain in a week.

The dollar finished flat after it had staged gains in the previous three sessions. It had been on pace for another gain, but fell in afternoon trade.

Commodities were, once again, mixed on the session. Industrials (+1.5%) led by a 4.3% rally in cotton, were the largest advancing sector. Energy (-1.5%), led by a 4.5% decline in natural gas, was the largest declining factor.

March natural gas fell 4.5% to finish at $4.11 per MMBtu. Prices traded to their lowest levels since late Dec at $4.101 on forecasts for milder weather in the weeks ahead. March crude oil settled lower by 1.7% to $87.48 per barrel. Easing tensions in Egypt weighed on prices throughout the day and forced crude oil to its lowest levels, at $87.42 per barrel, in over a week.

It was a relatively uneventful session for precious metals. April gold prices closed near flat at $1348.20 per ounce. March silver finished higher by 1.4% to $29.35 per ounce.

Advancing Sectors: Financial (+1.5%), Industrials (+1.0%), Utilities (+0.7%), Tech (+0.6%), Energy (+0.6%), Consumer Discretionary (+0.5%), Materials (+0.5%), Consumer Staples (+0.1%)
Declining Sectors: Health Care (-0.2%), Telecom (-0.2%) DJ30 +69.48 NASDAQ +14.69 NQ100 +0.5% R2K +1.0% SP400 +0.9% SP500 +8.18 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1803/1.77 bln/863 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2073/88 mln/917