YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: rade was sloppy this session, but the major equity averages still settled near the neutral line. The action came in the wake of the first rate hike by a major central bank and news of another earthquake in Japan. Reports from retailers had little impact on the overall market.

Stocks started the session flat as participants assessed an in-line initial jobless claims tally of 382,000, news that late yesterday Portugal requested foreign financial aid, and the first rate hike by the European Central Bank since mid-2008. The ECB's key lending rate now stands at 1.25%. According to comments from ECB President Trichet, the vote for the increase was unanimous.

The Bank of England and the Bank of Japan both concluded meetings of their own today. England's central bank kept target rates unchanged at 0.5% and held in place its 200 billion pound asset purchase program. Japan's central bank announced that a special lending program will be made available to companies adversely affected by the massive earthquake that hit the country last month.

News of another earthquake in Japan today was met with some knee-jerk selling that took the Dow down to a loss of almost 100 points. Some buyers were brought back into the fold by follow-up reports that the quake wasn't as severe as it had been feared and that nuclear facilities weren't damaged. Still, stocks struggled to put together a sustainable rebound. In turn, they spent the rest of the session chopping along without much direction. The action made for another flat finish.

Even though the overall market continued its sideways crawl, shares of several retailers put together impressive gains with help from stronger-than-expected same-store sales results for March. Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY 29.99, +0.24) was a top performer, but its strength came on the back of better-than-expected earnings and an upside forecast. In contrast, Gap (GPS 22.72, -0.34) issued downside guidance, which combined with disappointing same-store sales to take the stock to a loss.

Muddled action in the overall market mired energy stocks, which only mustered modest gains as oil prices climbed to new two-year highs above $110 per barrel. The energy component settled pit trade at $110.30 per barrel. It is now up more than 20% year to date.

Financials fell to a 0.4% loss after the sector outperformed in the prior session with a gain of more than 1%. Although weakness was widespread, most of the pushback was made against insurance issues.

Telecom finished the day flat, but it had one of the strongest finishes. At its session low the sector was off by more than 1%.

Industrials (+1.4%) and softs (+1%) led all gainers in commodities today. Coffee futures rallied 2.9%.

May crude oil finished higher by 1.4% to $110.30 per barrel. It broke above $110 to notch highs at $110.44, a fresh ~2.5 yr high. Crude last traded at these levels back in on Sept 22, 2008, when crude surged to $130, after the dollar was crushed by news of the $700 bln Wall St bailout package from the government. Today's rally comes on concerns out events in the Middle-East (Israel-Gaza) and Africa (Nigeria). May natural gas fell 2.3% to close at $4.06 per MMBtu. The selloff marked the fifth consecutive session in natural gas's recent sell off and stemmed from this morning's inventory data, which showed a smaller-than-expected draw down.

It was a relatively uneventful session for the precious metals. June gold ended up 0.1% to $1459.30 per ounce, while May silver gained 0.4% to $39.55 per ounce.

Advancing Sectors: Energy (+0.2%), Consumer Staples (+0.1%), Tech (+0.1%)
Unchanged: Telecom
Declining Sectors: Materials (-0.2%), Health Care (-0.2%), Consumer Discretionary (-0.3%), Financials (-0.4%), Utilities (-0.5%), Industrials (-0.5%)DJ30 -17.26 NASDAQ -3.68 NQ100 +0.00% R2K -0.6% SP400 -0.6% SP500 -2.03 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 935/1.81 bln/1658 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1116/910 mln/1872