YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Equities climbed steadily throughout the day, and the S&P 500 ended higher by 1.4%.

For the most part, today's session served as a rebound from yesterday's broad-based selling. All ten economic sectors settled in the black, and nine groups ended with gains of at least 1.0%.

The materials sector, which lost nearly 4.0% yesterday, led today's rally as the SPDR Materials Select Sector ETF (XLB 37.99, +0.68) rose 1.8%. Gold miners saw intraday strength, but afternoon weakness in the underlying metal caused the group to slide into the red. Meanwhile, steelmakers acted in support of the sector as the Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX 40.86, +0.63) rose 1.6%.

While the economically-sensitive materials space ended atop the leaderboard, the defensively-geared consumer staples were not far behind. Staple stocks received some support from Coca-Cola (KO 42.37, +2.28) after the beverage giant narrowly beat the Capital IQ earnings estimate.

The intraday performance of the leaders suggests a defensive trade played some part in today's action. After notching its highs during the opening minutes, the materials sector spent the remainder of the session near those levels. Meanwhile, consumer staples climbed throughout the day before settling on their highs.

A defensive bid also buoyed the health care sector where Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 83.44, +1.73) gained 2.1% after beating on earnings.

With the first quarter earnings season set to heat up in the coming days, Goldman Sachs (GS 144.10, -2.36) was among the handful of companies which reported earnings today. Although Goldman beat on earnings and revenue, its stock shed 1.6% as investors were unimpressed with the quality of the earnings beat. Meanwhile, the broader SPDR Financial Select Sector ETF (XLF 18.36, +0.28) advanced 1.6%.

Yesterday's selling caused significant weakness in homebuilders as well as the Dow Jones Transportation Average. Although the two groups were able to register gains, they remain in the red for the week.

Today's volume was slightly above average as 736 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Looking back at the economic data, the number of housing starts increased 7.0% in March from an upwardly revised 968,000 (from 917,000) in February to 1.036 million. That was the first time housing starts exceeded 1.00 million units since 2008. The Briefing.com consensus pegged the number of new housing starts at 930,000. However, the underlying trends were more mixed than the headline implied as multifamily construction, which tends to be highly volatile, made up the entire March gain. Those starts increased by nearly 100,000 from 318,000 in February to an unsustainable 417,000. As a result, multifamily construction is likely to retreat next month.

Industrial production increased 0.4% in March following an upwardly revised 1.1% gain (from 0.7%) in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected production levels to increase 0.3%.

The entire gain in production was due to a 5.3% increase in utilities usage. Colder-than-normal temperatures throughout March drove up heating demand.

Consumer prices fell 0.2% in March after increasing 0.7% in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected prices to decrease 0.1%.

Excluding food and energy, core prices increased 0.1% after rising 0.2% in February. The Briefing.com consensus expected core prices to increase by 0.2% for a second consecutive month.

Only two items of note can be found on tomorrow's economic calendar. The weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be reported at 7:00 ET while the Federal Reserve will release its April Beige Book at 14:00 ET. On the earnings front, Bank of America (BAC 12.28, +0.30) and Mattel (MAT 42.98, -0.04) will report their quarterly results ahead of the opening bell.DJ30 +157.58 NASDAQ +48.14 SP500 +22.21 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1926/1.46 bln/555 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2501/743.5 mln/539

3:30 pm :

May crude oil erased most of its early pit trade losses after coming off a session low of $87.60 per barrel. The energy component briefly broke into positive territory and to a session high of $88.94 per barrel in afternoon action but ultimately settled 0.1% lower at $88.69 per barrel.
May natural gas retreated from its session high of $4.19 per MMBtu set in early floor trade and fell into negative territory shortly after equity markets opened. Despite brushing a session low of $4.08 per MMBtu, it recovered back into the black and settled 0.5% higher at $4.16 per MMBtu.
June gold rose after two sessions of sharp losses with a weaker dollar index and broad market strength boosting prices. The yellow metal touched a session high of $1402.70 per ounce as floor trade opened and dipped to a session low of $1371.70 per oune in mid-morning action. It eventually settled at $1387.30 per ounce, or 1.9% higher. Gold sold off here after hours and is now at $1364.40.
May silver spent most of today's floor session in positive territory. It dipped into the red and to a session low of $23.24 per ounce in mid-morning action but quickly recovered back above the unchanged line. It traded in a consolidative pattern near the $23.60 per ounce level in afternoon pit trade and settled with a 1.3% gain at $23.66 per ounce.