YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Listless and lackluster action kept participants on the sidelines as stocks consolidated their recent gains. A lack of market-moving headlines and other trading catalysts also made for minimal participation.

Investors and traders showed little willingness to step back into the stock market after it advanced more than 3% last week. In turn, hardly 900 million shares exchanged hands on the NYSE in what was this year's second-smallest level of volume.

In addition to the light trade, action was also rather quiet and stocks spent most of the session stuck in a narrow range. There were neither economic data nor corporate news items to act as movers.

However, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 51.73, -0.30) did disappoint with its downward revision of first quarter earnings to $1.07 per share.

Despite the generally positive influence of merger and acquisition activity on the broader market, news that AIG (AIG 29.10, +1.02) offloaded its American Life Insurance Company to MetLife (MET 40.90, +1.98) in a $15.5 billion deal only seemed to help shares of insurers. Still, that kept the financial sector in positive territory for the entire session. Financials finished with a tepid 0.2% gain.

A bounce by the dollar also kept a cap on trade. The greenback had been down roughly 0.4% at its session low, but recovered to finish flat.

Despite the bland action in the broader market, the Nasdaq Composite was able to garner enough support to hit a fresh 52-week high. Research In Motion (RIMM 73.39, +3.89) was a primary leader after it was upgraded on Wall Street.

The commodity complex closed essentially unchanged as the dollar index did the same.

Precious metals sold off as the dollar pared its early losses this morning. Both metals moved modestly higher off session lows but traded relatively flat for the remainder of the session, netting marked losses. April gold closed 1.0% lower at $1124.00 per ounce. Gold futures are still above their 50 moving average near the $1109.50 level. May silver closed 0.6% lower at $17.27 per ounce. 

April crude oil futures broke below the $81 level late in the morning as the dollar index hit a session high. April crude oil futures pared those losses and traded all the way into positive territory, however. They closed at $81.87 per barrel, up 0.5%.

Advancing Sectors: Telecom (+1.1%), Consumer Discretionary (+0.4%), Tech (+0.3%), Financials (+0.2%)
Declining Sectors: Industrials (-0.5%), Health Care (-0.4%), Consumer Staples (-0.4%), Energy (-0.2%), Materials (-0.1%), Utilities (-0.1%)DJ30 -13.68 NASDAQ +5.86 NQ100 +0.1% R2K +0.2% SP400 +0.2% SP500 -0.20 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1443/2.19 bln/1246 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1792/905 mln/1249