YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Some modest buying helped both the Dow and S&P 500 set fractionally improved two-year highs, but the lack of conviction among market participants proved apparent as the major equity averages ultimately finished mixed.

A lack of news flow in the early going left market participants without any clear clues for trade. That kept the stock market mired near the neutral line for almost the entire morning.

Energy stocks showed relative strength, but the sector failed to inspire broader buying. Still, the energy sector settled 0.4% higher, which puts it on pace for an annual gain of almost 17%.

GM (GM 35.32, +0.72) attracted some positive attention of its own. Several positive reviews from Wall Street were issued overnight, but strength in the automaker's shares didn't spillover into the rest of the discretionary space. In fact, the consumer discretionary sector shed 0.2%.

The broader market didn't really make any kind of an upward push until the final couple of hours. Even then buying interest was moderate and without conviction as only about 560 million shares traded hands. As was the case in the prior session, vacations and snow storms kept many traders away from their desks.

Support tapered off into the close so that stocks ended the day with underwhelming results. It was somewhat impressive, though, that stocks appeared unfazed by the dollar's rally from a loss of 0.8% to a fractional gain.

Precious metals were also unfazed by the greenbacks bounce. Silver settled at almost $30.31 per ounce with a 3.6% gain while gold gained 1.7% to end pit trade at $1405.90 per ounce.

Treasuries were trounced after an auction of 5-year Notes proved disappointing. The auction's dollar demand totaled just $91.4 billion, which is the least since July 2009. While the 5-year Note fell about 19 ticks the benchmark 10-year Note tumbled more than a full point and the 30-year Bond dropped more than two full points. Their yields stand at 2.15%, 3.49%, and 4.53%, respectively.

Only a dearth of data has been issued during the past couple of days. The latest dose consisted of the Conference Board's December Consumer Confidence Index, which fell to 52.5 from 54.3 in the prior month. The latest tally was also below the 56.1 that had been expected among economists polled by Briefing.com. The data had no real effect on the mood of market participants.

Undeterred by the dollar's rally from a loss of about 0.8% to a fractional gain, commodities put together a strong performance that sent the CRB Commodity Index to a 0.7% gain.

Silver was a standout. It settled at almost $30.31 per ounce, near its session high, with a 3.6% gain. Gold settled with a 1.7% gain at $1405.90 per ounce, which is just shy of its own session high.

As for energy prices, natural gas made a strong, steady ascent throughout the day to settle with a 3.1% gain at $4.24 per ounce. Gold lagged, but it still managed to make a 0.5% gain to end the day at $91.47 per barrel.

Advancing Sectors: Energy (+0.4%), Materials (+0.3%), Utilities (+0.2%), Consumer Staples (+0.2%), Industrials (+0.1%)
Declining Sectors: Consumer Discretionary (-0.2%)
Unchanged: Tech, Telecom, Health Care, FinancialsDJ30 +20.51 NASDAQ -4.39 NQ100 -0.1% R2K -0.4% SP400 -0.2% SP500 +0.97 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1081/1.14 bln/1547 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1440/557 mln/1543