YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: ‘Broad support on Friday helped the S&P
500 come back after booking three straight declines.
The effort helped feed a weekly gain of 0.8%, which stands as the eleventh
weekly advance in 13 tries for the S&P 500. That hot streak drove the broad
market measure to a 3.1% gain for March -- its fourth straight monthly gain --
and a 12.0% gain for the first quarter. That marks the best quarterly
performance for the stock market since 2009 and the best first quarter
performance since 1998.
Tech stocks were integral in the stock market's streak of gains,
but they were relatively weak today. That hampered the Nasdaq. In fact, Tech fell 0.4% and was the only
sector to settle in the red. Despite that, Tech still scored a 1.0% weekly
gain, a 5.0% monthly gain, and a 21.1% quarterly gain.
For the second straight day Energy emerged as a leader after a
listless start to the session. Energy stocks advanced 0.8% on Friday, but fell
0.5% for the week and 3.4% for the month. The Energy sector was up 3.4% in the
first quarter, but that paled in comparison to the 17.6% that it had rallied in
the fourth quarter.
Energy's action this week came in close connection to movement in
oil prices. Earlier this week oil prices fell to a new monthly low narrowly
above $102 per barrel, but it bounced back to $103 per barrel today. As a proxy
for oil's action this week, the
Corporate news today was limited in scope and generally without
consequence. For the most part economic data was also shrugged off…’