YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: It took stocks a while to muster any kind of upward momentum, but the major equity averages managed to make modest gains, which ultimately extended their recent highs.

Even though there was a rush of headlines this morning, stocks struggled to establish a clear direction. Participants first got their hands on another big batch of quarterly reports, but those announcements became of secondary concern with the release of the advance reading on first quarter GDP. Although the economy grew from January through March at an annualized rate of 1.8%, which is greater than the 1.7% increase that had been broadly expected to follow the 3.1% spike in the fourth quarter, participants were disappointed with the latest initial jobless claims tally.

Initial claims for the week ended April 23 totaled 429,000, which is greater than the 390,000 initial claims that had been expected, on average, among economists surveyed by Briefing.com. Given that initial claims have climbed back above 400,000 and exceeded expectations in each of the past several weeks, some consternation has been developing among market participants.

The latest round of earnings reports didn't induce much trading in the overall market, but there were a few movers in the pack. Akamai Tech (AKAM 34.94, -6.04) dove sharply as participants ignored an upside earnings surprise and plans to repurchase shares to focus on the company's cautious commentary and outlook. Norfolk Southern (NSC 73.87, +5.46) moved in the other direction; its spike to a record high followed stronger-than-expected earnings.

Dow component Exxon Mobil (XOM 87.34, -0.44) moved modestly lower, despite an upside earnings surprise. Fellow blue chip Procter & Gamble (PG 64.50, +0.48) actually came short of the consensus earnings estimate, but still booked a gain. PepsiCo (PEP 69.72, +1.79), eBay (EBAY 34.00, -0.03), Colgate-Palmolive (CL 82.97, +1.91), AstraZeneca (AZN 49.90, -1.72), BristolMyersSquibb (BMY 28.29, +0.01), and Aetna (AET 41.45, +1.64) all posted better-than-expected bottom line results.

Trade today wasn't very dramatic. In fact, stocks spent most of the session stuck near the neutral line. It was only in the final hour that the market managed to move out of its trading range, mostly with its own volition.

Treasuries managed to put together modest gains of their own, even though the results from an auction of 7-year Notes proved unimpressive. The auction drew a bid-to-cover of 2.63, dollar demand of $76.3 billion, and an indirect bidder participation rate of 38.7%. For comparison, the prior auction drew a bid-to-cover of 2.79, dollar demand of $80.9 billion, and an indirect bidder participation rate of 49.4%.

Precious metals continue to put on a show that has repeatedly featured new highs. Gold gained 0.9% to settle at $1530.60 per ounce after it reached a record high of almost $1539 per ounce. Silver prices pushed closer to $50 per ounce for a fresh 30-year high, but settled with a 4.2% gain at $47.90 per ounce.

Silver prices put on another strong performance. After stretching to almost $50 per ounce to set a new 30-year high, silver prices settled with a 4.2% gain at $47.90 per ounce. Gold prices settled at $1530.60 per ounce to post a 0.9% gain after they set a record high of almost $1539 per ounce.

Oil had a rather volatile session that saw prices climb to a new 2011 high of almost $114 per barrel before it fell below $112 per barrel in early afternoon trade. It closed just below $113 per barrel, essentially unchanged.

A smaller-than-expected build in weekly inventories helped natural gas prices put together a gain of about 3% near $4.63 per MMBtu.

Advancing Sectors:Consumer Staples (+0.8%), Financials (+0.8%), Utilities (+0.7%), Health Care (+0.5%), Consumer Discretionary (+0.4%), Materials (+0.3%), Industrials (+0.3%), Telecom (+0.2%)
Unchanged: Tech
Declining Sectors: Energy (-0.2%)DJ30 +72.35 NASDAQ +2.65 NQ100 -0.2% R2K +0.4% SP400 +0.2% SP500 +4.82 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1437/1.99 bln/1129 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1838/958 mln/1144