YAHOO [BRIEIFNG.COM]: April ended on a modestly lower note, perhaps appropriately since it marked the first monthly loss for the S&P 500 since November.

Stocks had a four session streak of gains and a run of four straight monthly gains snapped today. Motivation to bid stocks higher was undermined by news that Spain's economy is officially in recession and then participants were dealt some lackluster domestic data. Personal spending increased by 0.3% during March, but that's a slower clip than the 0.5% increase that had been expected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com. The smaller-than-expected increase came despite a stronger-than-expected pickup in personal income, which increased by 0.4% when a 0.2% increase had been widely anticipated. As for core personal consumption expenditures (PCE), they increased by 0.2% month over month, as had been broadly expected. Separately, the latest Chicago PMI reading came in at 56.2, which is well below the 60.0 that had been expected broadly.

Earnings reports were anything but stellar. Humana (HUM 80.59, -7.23) was among the more widely held names to report, but its earnings mess was met with a concerted selling effort that sank the stock some 8% to a 2012 low. Merck (MRK 39.24, +0.78) offered the Health Care sector support by pushing higher in response to news that it won a patent infringement lawsuit.

There were a couple of impressive performances in the midst of marred broad market action. Sunoco (SUN 49.29, +8.38) spiked to a multi-year high because of news that it will be acquired by Energy Transfer Partners (ETP 49.63, +1.71) in a deal that values shares of the former at $50.13 per share. That news inspired interest in a handful of oil and gas refiners and marketers, helping the broader Energy sector work its way up to a 0.5% gain, which is second only to the 0.6% gain staged by Telecom. Barnes & Noble (BKS 20.75, +7.07) settled at a session low, but still booked a gain of about 50% on the back of news that the company has entered a strategic partnership with Microsoft (MSFT 32.01, +0.03) to accelerate the transition into e-reading.

Broad weakness among commodities in the early going had the CRB Index down markedly, but a rebound among several key constituents helped the CRB end the day with a narrow gain of 0.1%.

Crude oil spent the majority of the day inching higher to pull out of negative territory just minutes before floor trade closed. Although the energy component was as low as $103.97 per barrel this morning, it managed to finish its session a few pennies above the unchanged line at $104.89 per barrel. Natural gas also began pit trade in the red, but it soon trended higher, setting a session high of $2.29 per MMBtu along the way. It settled at $2.28 per MMBU for a 4.6% gain.

Precious metals sold-off further moments before pit trade opened, with gold dipping to $1645.10 per ounce. The metal then trended higher to close pit trade just below the unchanged line at $1664.40 per ounce. Silver chopped around in a consolidative manner for most of the morning session, touching a session low of $30.62 per ounce, but it gained some momentum going into afternoon action and settled floor trade at $31.02 per ounce for a 1.2% loss.

Advancing Sectors: Telecom +0.6%, Energy +0.5%, Utilities +0.2%
Declining Sectors: Health Care -0.1%, Consumer Staples -0.3%, Consumer Discretionary -0.5%, Financials -0.6%, Materials -0.7%, Industrials -0.9%, Tech -0.9%DJ30 -14.68 NASDAQ -22.84 NQ100 -0.6% R2K -1.0% SP400 -0.8% SP500 -5.45 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 855/1.60 bln/1680 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1181/846 mln/1841