YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Stocks finished the first quarter in lackluster fashion, but still scored their best first quarter performance since 1998.

Buying in recent sessions helped the S&P 500 work its way to a quarterly gain of more than 5%. However, momentum was lost today as participants digested some relatively uninspiring data and showed caution ahead of tomorrow's pivotal payrolls report.

Initial jobless claims for the week ended March 26 totaled 388,000, which is down from the prior week, but slightly greater than the 383,000 initial claims that had been expected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com.

The Chicago PMI for March came in at 70.6, which is slightly stronger than the 69.5 that had been widely anticipated, but less than the prior month's figure of 71.2.

Factory orders figures for February fell 0.1% in the face of the Briefing.com consensus call for a 0.4% increase.

Late comments from Minneapolis Fed President Kocherlakota, an FOMC voting member, indicated that the Fed funds rate may need to increase by 75 basis points in late 2011. Stocks wavered a bit in response, but their movement only looked meaningful because of the session's narrow trading range.

Stocks lacked leadership all session long. Energy stocks displayed strength in the early going, but retreated to a 0.3% loss, even though oil prices pushed past $106 per barrel to a new two-year high. Oil prices in the continuous contract gained almost 17% in the first quarter.

Materials stocks and industrial stocks scored a 0.4% gains, collectively, but neither has the weight to provide a broader lift.

Financials fell 0.4% in one of the poorest sector performances. Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B 83.63, -1.83) was a key source of weakness after the company announced the resignation of David Sokol, who many had considered to be a possible successor for Warren Buffett.

Mosaic (MOS 78.75, -1.70) and CarMax (KMX 32.10, -2.49) both battled selling pressure, too. Both posted better-than-expected earnings.

Although participants exercised restraint ahead of the tomorrow's jobs report, the end of the quarter brought about a slight increase in share volume as investors moved to reposition portfolios. In turn, trading volume on the NYSE exceeded 1 billion shares for the first time in over a week.

Commodities, aside from softs (-0.2%), finished higher today, led by a 4.1% surge in grains. May wheat rallied for 4.9% to close at $7.63 per bushel, May corn gained 4.5% to end at $6.9325, while May soybeans added 2.8% to finish at $14.105 per bushel. All three contracts rallied on this morning's qtrly USDA report, which showed a 15% YoY decline in corn inventory as of March 1, a 5% increase in wheat inventory, and a 1.7% decline in soybeans.

May crude oil surged 2.5% to close at $106.72 per barrel, its best settling levels in ~2.5 yrs and just shy of its ~2.5 yr highs at $106.95. Concerns about a prolonged battle between rebels and Libyan forces pushed crude higher today. May natural gas finished up 0.9% to $4.39 per MMBtu, after recouping its inventory induced losses, which showed a build vs expectations for a modest draw down.

April gold finished higher by 0.8% to $1436.90 per ounce, while May silver gained 0.7% to end at $37.82 per ounce.

Advancing Sectors: Industrials (+0.4%), Materials (+0.4%)
Unchanged: Telecom, Health Care
Declining Sectors: Consumer Staples (-0.3%), Energy (-0.3%), Utilties (-0.3%), Tech (-0.3%), Financials (-0.4%), Consumer Discretionary (-0.4%)DJ30 -30.88 NASDAQ +4.28 NQ100 +0.1% R2K +0.4% SP400 +0.4% SP500 -2.43 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1494/1.91 bln/1117 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1746/1.08 bln/1241