YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]:The stock market settled shy of its session high, but it still managed to score a gain, which successfully snapped a six-session losing streak.

There weren't really any inspiring headlines this morning, but the growing belief that stocks are near-term oversold drove some relief buying. In turn, participants shrugged off news that initial jobless claims for the week ended June 4 totaled 427,000, which is greater than the 423,000 initial claims that had been expected among economists polled by Briefing.com. The latest tally was little changed from the prior week's count.

Although U.S. exports increased by just 1.3% in April after they had climbed by 4.9% in March, the U.S. trade deficit for April totaled $43.7 billion, which isn't quite as deep as the $48.7 billion deficit that had been broadly expected. The latest deficit is also less than the downwardly revised March deficit of $46.8 billion.

There was little corporate news to trade today, but Texas Instruments (TXN 32.91, +0.24) came into focus for cutting its guidance then clarifying that the revision was due to softer demand from a single wireless customer. Fellow semiconductor play National Semiconductor (NSM 24.58, -0.01) failed to see much action ahead of its quarterly report as participants generally ignored the rest of the tech space. A general lack of interest among tech plays left the sector to muster a gain of merely 0.1%. Listlessness in the space also hampered the Nasdaq, which ended the day with only a modest gain.

A bullish USDA report bolstered strength in shares of agricultural chemical and product companies. That helped the broader materials sector climb more than 2% before it drifted into the close to settle with a 1.6% gain.

Financials finally made a strong move higher after falling to a 2011 low in the prior session. The sector's 1.2% gain came in response to strength among both banking issues and insurance plays.

The improved tone among market participants this session took both the Dow and S&P 500 to gains of little more than 1%. The pair spent most of the afternoon stuck in a narrow trading range before slowly surrendering some of their gains into the close.

The stock market's late slip helped relieve Treasuries from some selling. Treasuries had set session lows shortly after the early afternoon release of results from an auction of 30-year Bonds. The auction drew a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.63, dollar demand of $34.2 billion, and an indirect bidder participation rate of 38.4%.

Market participants spent most of the session giving little consideration to a stronger dollar, which was helped by weakness in the euro after European Central Bank President Trichet stated the need to remain vigilant in an environment of upward inflation pressure and economic uncertainty. The ECB opted to keep its target interest rate unchanged at 1.25%.

August gold finished higher by 0.3% to $1453.00 per ounce, while July silver closed up 2% to $37.36. Despite strength in the dollar, both precious metals rallied on the heels of commentary from ECB President Jean Claude Trichet that implied the bank will hike rates in July -following today's decision to keep them unchanged. Both metals spent the remainder of the session pulling back from those highs, with gold finishing with only modest gains.

July corn futures rallied for 2.9% to close at $7.86 per bushel, after trading to a new all-time high at $7.94 per bushel. This morning's USDA report showed inventory expectations for 2011/12 crop season that fell 22.8% to 695 mln bushels.

July crude oil settled higher by 1.2% to finish at $101.93 per barrel. The rally in crude oil was part of the broad based rally in the commodities sector, but was also underpinned by supply concerns following yesterday's OPEC meeting. July natural gas shed 3.6% to end at $4.67 per MMBtu. The catalyst for the sell-off in natural gas futures was this morning's inventory data, which showed a larger-than-expected build.

Advancing Sectors: Materials (+1.6%), Energy (+1.2%), Financials (+1.2%), Health Care (+1.0%), Consumer Discretionary (+0.8%), Industrials (+0.7%), Consumer Staples (+0.5%), Tech (+0.1%), Utilities (+0.1%)
Declining Sectors: Telecom (-0.1%)DJ30 +75.42 NASDAQ +9.49 NQ100 +0.2% R2K +0.6% SP400 +0.5% SP500 +9.44 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1599/1.71 bln/1002 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1904/908 mln/1076