YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: The broad market booked its third straight loss on Thursday, but for the second straight session it staged a late rally that slashed losses.

Prior to the open traders shrugged off the final reading on fourth quarter GDP. Unchanged from the previous report, it showed that the economy expanded at a rate of 3.0%, just as had been widely anticipated. The latest initial jobless claims count also failed to excite; claims climbed 9,000 week-over-week to 359,000, which is greater than the tally of 350,000 that had been expected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com.

Financials had helped the stock market halve its loss in the prior session, but today the sector led it lower. Financials were off by about 2% at their session low, dragging down the broader market to a loss of nearly 1%. Although the Financial sector was eventually able to trim its loss, it failed to fully participate in the broad market's afternoon rally. As a result it still suffered a 1.1% loss.

Continuing with the role reversal, Energy stocks weighed heavily on trade yesterday and were down in excess of 1% again today before a barrage of late-afternoon buying boosted the sector to back to the flat line.

The move came even though oil prices came under further pressure today. In fact, the energy component set a new monthly low narrowly above $102 per barrel before it settled at $102.80 per barrel with a 2.5% loss. Worse still, natural gas prices plummeted to new multi-year lows in the wake of a bearish weekly inventory report before they settled pit trade with a 5.7% loss at $2.15 per MMBtu. In connection with that move the US Natural Gas Fund (UNG 16.21, -0.90) notched new lifetime lows.

Although neither the S&P 500 nor the Nasdaq could extend their late climb into positive territory, the Dow managed to muster a narrow gain with help from Coca-Cola (KO 73.81, +1.15), Intel (INTC 28.16, +0.36), and Caterpillar (CAT 106.02, +1.76), each of which advanced in excess of 1%.

Consumer Discretionary play Best Buy (BBY 24.77, -1.85) still suffered a deep loss and set a 10-day low as sellers piled on in response to the company's latest quarterly report. The results featured an upside earnings surprise, but that was overshadowed by a relatively light revenue figure. An in-line outlook failed to win favor for the stock.

In response to the stock market's morning descent the Volatility Index, euphemistically labeled Fear Gauge, spiked more than 10% to clear 17, but it retreated as the tone of trade improved. By day's end it was relatively flat.

Treasuries managed to maintain gains in the face of the stock market's upswing. That took the yield on the benchmark 10-year Note to a new 10-day low, comfortably below 2.20%.

The greenback had another relatively quiet session in that the Dollar Index traded near the neutral line for the better part of the day and into the close. However, the sterling pound staged a strong gain that helped it recoup its prior session loss by trading up 0.4% to $1.59 by the closing bell. The yen was up more than 1% against the greenback, but drifted lower into the afternoon so that it the yen per dollar ratio was down 0.6% to 82.42 at session end.

Concerted selling among commodities caused the CRB Index to suffer a 1.8% loss, which stands as its worst single-session slide in three months.

Natural gas prices tumbled further into negative territory following weekly inventory numbers that showed a build of 57 bcf, which exceeds the expected build of 50 bcf. The move left prices to trade with losses in excess of 5% after they had been down about 2% prior to the report. Unable to recover, natural gas prices probed new multi-year lows before settling pit trade with a 5.7% loss at $2.15 per MMBtu.  Reflecting such action, the US Natural Gas Fund (UNG 16.29, -0.82) succumbed to heavy pressure that left the ETF to log lifetime lows.

Crude oil futures prices fell as low as $102.10 per barrel, but trended upward in the final hour of pit trade. Still, it logged a loss of 2.5% at $102.80 per barrel.

Precious metals slid into negative territory mid-day. Selling took gold as low as $1644.30 per ounce and silver to a session low of $31.63 per ounce.  From there both metals fought to recover. Although gold still settled at $1651.90 per ounce with a 0.3% loss, silver settled at $31.98 per ounce with a a gain of 0.4%

Advancing Sectors: Utilities +0.4%, Health Care +0.2%, Industrials +0.1%, Materials +0.1%
Unchanged: Energy, Consumer Staples, Consumer Discretionary
Declining Sectors: Tech -0.2%, Telecom -0.3%, Financials -1.1%DJ30 +19.61 NASDAQ -9.60 NQ100 -0.3% R2K -0.3% SP400 -0.1% SP500 -2.26 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1064/1.74 bln/1430 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1161/817 mln/1815