YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: The major equity averages scored strong gains as oil prices failed to fight off selling efforts and financials offered leadership.

Stocks stumbled in the early going as oil prices rallied back from overnight selling pressure. Oil had been hit by news reports that OPEC would increase production. Although later reports indicated that the organization has no plans for an extraordinary meeting, oil still failed to sustain its move and spent the rest of the day oscillating in negative territory. It closed with a 0.4% loss near $105 per barrel.

Financials showed strength from the onset of trade. Even as the broader market made an early dip into negative territory the sector traded higher. Once oil proved unable to sustain a push into positive territory financials attracted additional buying interest. Support for a wide range of financial issues helped drive the sector to a 2.2% gain. Specialized finance (-0.5%) failed to fined favor, though.

Even more impressive, airline stocks soared to a 4.8% gain. That made for the strongest single-session move by the Amex Airline Index in more than four months. The Airline Index is still down almost 6% year to date though.

Of the major sectors, only energy finished in the red. The sector's 0.6% loss was largely the result of weakness in oil and gas refiners, which dropped 2.4%.

There were no economic releases today and earnings announcements were without any real broad market concern. That may have kept some on the sidelines, but total share volume was still close to 1 billion on the NYSE.

The decidedly positive bias among afternoon traders helped the S&P 500 and the Dow undo yesterday's loss. However, relatively lackluster performances by a few large-cap tech issues hampered the Nasdaq today, so it is still down a bit for the week.

While Wall Street had a strong session, action abroad was a bit mixed. Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE both finished flat, but France's CAC climbed to a 0.6% gain. The Bank of France kept its first quarter GDP forecast unchanged at 0.8% growth. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei and China's Shanghai Composite closed with minor gains, but Hong Kong's Hang Seng surged 1.7% as buyers there were encouraged by news that some banks will have their reserve requirements eased.

Another mixed session for commodities, with livestock (+1.9%) and softs (+1.3%) the only advancing sectors. Lean hogs added 2.4% to close at $1.01925 per pound.

April crude oil shed 0.4% to close at $105.02 per barrel. A rumor that leaders of the rebel party are considering a conditional offer from Muammar Gadhafi to step down, coupled with talk from OPEC that they were considering an output hike, weighed on crude today. Despite later headlines that conflicted with both of the earlier reports, crude oil finished the day modestly lower. April natural gas shed 1.4% to close at $3.87 per MMBtu.

A rebound in the dollar and a pullback in crude oil caused for April gold to finish lower by 0.4% to $1427.20 per ounce and May silver to end down 0.4% to $36.66 per ounce.

Advancing Sectors: Financials (+2.2%), Telecom (+1.6%), Industrials (+1.5%), Utilities (+1.0%), Materials (+1.0%), Consumer Staples (+0.8%), Consumer Discretionary (+0.7%), Health Care (+0.7%), Tech (+0.6%)
Declining Sectors: Energy (-0.6%)DJ30 +124.35 NASDAQ +20.14 NQ100 +0.4% R2K +1.5% SP400 +1.2% SP500 +11.69 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1898/1.85 bln/745 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2243/987 mln/717