YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: The stock market climbed as much as 1% to set a new five-month high, but the move failed to hold amid a bounce by the dollar.

Stocks staged a strong climb in the early going. The only pause came as the S&P 500 came in contact with the five-month high that it had set on Monday, but stocks quickly regained momentum and extended their push to reach their best levels since May.

Initial strength in the stock market was partly owed to a weaker dollar, which surrendered an overnight gain to trade with a loss of 0.4% at its session low. However, the dollar's rally to a 0.4% gain caused market participants to turn against stocks, such that all three major indices retreated into the red before making a mild recovery into the close.

Earnings were also in focus. And even though most companies posted strong reports, participants had a rather fickle reaction.

Industrial giant and Dow component Caterpillar (CAT 78.89, -0.99) posted better-than-expected earnings for its latest quarter and augmented that announcement with upside guidance. Eli Lilly (LLY 35.50, -0.51) and UPS (UPS 69.59, -0.06) did the same. However, none of the three was able to muster a gain.

In contrast, eBay (EBAY 27.19, +1.53) bested on the bottom line and issued upside guidance. The stock set a new 52-week high, but finished at its session low. McDonald's (MCD 78.44, +1.03) also set a fresh 52-week high after it served up its own positive earnings surprise.

Despite the broader market's tepid finish, defensive-oriented stocks failed to find much support. That left the utilities sector and the telecom sector to finish with a 0.5% loss. Dow component AT&T (T 28.34, -0.27) was a laggard in the bunch even though it posted in-line earnings results.

Financials also faltered. Their 0.2% loss stemmed from weakness in diversified financial services stocks (-1.8%) and investment banks and brokerage plays (-1.0%), which offset gains among regional banks (+1.1%) following better-than-expected earnings from Fifth Third (FITB 12.80, +0.40), PNC Bank (PNC 53.56, +0.82), SunTrust (STI 26.59, +1.14), and Huntington Banc (HBAN 5.62, +0.02).

Data did not get much of a response out of market participants this session. The latest jobless claims tally fell 23,000 week-over-week to 452,000, which is in stride with the 455,000 initial claims that had been expected among economists polled by Briefing.com. The October Philadelphia Fed Index hit 1.0, which is only slightly below the 1.5 that had been widely forecast. Meanwhile, Leading Indicators for September increased 0.3%, as expected.

The energy group led commodities lower today after it shed 2.5%. The precious metals group was right behind it, with a 2.4% sell off. Nov natural gas dropped 3.6% to finish at $3.37 per MMBtu, in the wake of the this morning's bearish inventory data. It traded to fresh 13-month lows at $3.72 per MMBtu. Dec crude oil ended down 2.4% to $80.56 per barrel. Strength in the dollar, coupled with weaker equities, weighed on crude oil throughout the session.

Dec gold shed 1.5% to finish at $1325.10 per ounce, while Dec silver ended down 2.9% to $23.14 per ounce. Both metals dropped sharply on the strength in the dollar.

Advancing Sectors: Consumer Discretionary (+0.7%), Industrials (+0.7%), Health Care (+0.3%), Consumer Staples (+0.3%), Tech (+0.1%), Materials (+0.1%)
Declining Sectors: Telecom (-0.5%), Utilities (-0.5%), Financials (-0.2%), Energy (-0.1%)DJ30 +38.60 NASDAQ +2.28 NQ100 +0.2% R2K -0.6% SP400 -0.2% SP500 +2.09 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1006/2.14 bln/1597 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1450/1.05 bln/1507