YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Stocks may have settled in the red, but the loss was only about half as bad as what it could have been.

Widespread weakness dropped the stock market to a midday loss of more than 1%. The negative bias among participants was primarily the result of selling pressure abroad. In its first full session of trade since a massive earthquake hit the country late last week, Japan's Nikkei plummeted 6% in its worst single session slide in more than two years. In order to promote liquidity, Japan's central bank announced plans to increase its asset purchase plan to 10 trillion yen from 5 trillion and to make another 15 trillion yen available for the banking system. Even though action in Japan was extremely weak, stocks in Hong Kong and Mainland China actually mustered modest gains.

Europe's major bourses all fell on sharply as participants there considered that a weekend vote by Europe's officials to increase the bailout package for fiscally strained eurozone countries to 440 billion euros from 250 billion euros would be footed mostly by the continent's major economies. However, Greece's Athex rallied 5%.

The idea of a more fiscally stable eurozone overall helped euro advance against the greenback. It was quoted with a 0.7% gain at about $1.400 at the end of the trading day.

There weren't any real broad market drivers for domestic participants today, but even as stocks were beaten down to fresh one-month lows they still fought off some of the selling pressure in afternoon trade. That helped the major averages finish the day with relatively modest losses.

Energy stocks stood out as the only sector that settled in higher ground. Their 0.4% gain was led by refiners, which were initially pushed higher amid another pullback in oil prices. Oil prices managed to overcome a 2% loss to settle the day flat modestly above $101 per barrel.

Solar energy stocks booked some of the best performances for the day. Their gains were underpinned by notions that demand will be spurred amid the challenge facing Japan following explosions at many of the country's nuclear facilities in the wake of the earthquake.

Such consideration kept pressure on electric utilities stocks, which finished trade with a 1.4% loss.

It was a mixed session for commodities. Grains (+0.3%) led all advancers, while industrials (-1.4%) led all decliners.

April crude oil finished just above unchanged at $101.19 per barrel. It successfully erased overnight losses, where it put in lows at $98.47. The Middle East was once again the focus of the market today after reports that Saudi Arabia, as well as the UAE, were sending troops into Bahrain. April natural gas closed up 0.7% to $3.91 per MMBtu. Futures sold off in afternoon trade and closed off close to 15 cents off its highs.

It was an uneventful session for the precious metals. April gold ended higher by 0.3% to $101.19 per ounce, while May silver shed 0.2% to finish at $35.84 per ounce.

Advancing Sectors: Energy (+0.4%)
Declining Sectors: Utilities (-1.4%), Telecom (-1.1%), Consumer Discretionary (-1.1%), Financial (-1.0%), Industrials (-0.8%), Consumer Staples (-0.8%), Health Care (-0.5%), Tech (-0.4%), Materials (-0.2%)DJ30 -51.24 NASDAQ -14.64 NQ100 -0.4% R2K -0.6% SP400 -0.5% SP500 -7.89 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 782/1.78 bln/1837 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 952/963 mln/2021