YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Stocks staged a late rally that left the Dow and Nasdaq to finish at the neutral line and the S&P 500 to settle with only a fractional loss after all three had spent the session wrestling with selling pressure.

Market participants applied pressure to stocks in the wake of news that analysts at Moody's downgraded the debt ratings of several countries in the eurozone periphery. They also issued negative outlooks on France, Austria, and the United Kingdom. The headline acted as a reminder of the precarious conditions that persist in the eurozone even as efforts to restore conditions in flagging Greece continue.

Monthly retail sales were mixed. Overall retail sales for January were up 0.4%, but that's only half of the 0.8% increase that had been broadly expected to follow the flat rate posted for the prior month. Excluding autos, retail sales climbed by 0.7% to exceed the 0.5% increase that had been forecasted to follow a downwardly revised 0.5% decline in the prior month.

Export and import price data showed too little movement for traders to consider worthy of their attention. Business inventory data for December also failed to inspire; overall inventories increased by 0.4%, which is slightly less than the 0.5% increase that had been broadly anticipated.

Early losses were broad, but the stock market's slide was hardly steep. However, sellers were enticed to redouble their efforts with every failed rebound effort by the broad market. That trend took stocks to session lows late in the day, but without the command of any headline or catalyst buyers stepped in with some strong bidding once stocks stabilized narrowly beneath the depths set in the prior session.

The late squeeze higher helped every sector cut its loss. Still, both financials and materials stocks suffered collective losses slightly greater than 1%. The two groups lagged all session.

A lack of share volume likely made the stock market's upward move a little easier, given that individual bids carry greater relative weight on lightly traded sessions. In fact, during the final 30 minutes of trade share volume on the NYSE surged from less than a half billion shares to almost 750 million shares. Although that final tally is still quite paltry, it reflects a near 50% surge in share volume during the final leg of trade.

The greenback staged a strong advance today, resulting in a 0.6% gain for the Dollar Index. Most of that move is owed to a weaker yen, which tumbled so that its exchange rate climbed more than 1% to 78.40 yen per dollar following the decision of Japan's central bank to increase the size of its asset purchase program by about 18% to 65 trillion yen from 55 trillion yen.

Most major commodities closed in mixed fashion, leaving the CRB Index to finish the day at the flat line.

Oil prices surrendered gains to trade in the red during early afternoon action, but the commodity was able to climb back into positive territory to finish pit trade with a 0.5% gain at $100.81 per barrel. Natural gas prices rallied aggressively to $2.53 per MMBtu for a 4.1% gain.

Precious metals prices were clipped for losses. Specifically, gold settled at $1717.70 per ounce for a 0.4% loss, while silver settled with a 0.9% loss at $33.37 per ounce.

Advancing Sectors: Consumer Staples +0.4%, Health Care +0.3%, Utilities +0.2%, Energy +0.2%, Tech +0.2%
Declining Sectors: Telecom -0.1%, Consumer Discretionary -0.1%, Industrials -0.3%, Financials -1.1%, Materials -1.3%DJ30 +4.24 NASDAQ +0.44 NQ100 +0.2% R2K -0.5% SP400 -0.1% SP500 -1.27 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 967/2.10 bln/1570 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1088/744 mln/1904