YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Despite a lack of positive catalysts, strength in financial stocks led the broader market to a gain Tuesday. The advance, however, was threatened late in the session as a wave of selling pressure slashed gains.

Stocks spent the entire session in positive territory. Early action was a bit mixed and trading was choppy, but financials showed leadership. Strength in financials was put to the test in the final hour of trading, though, as a broad-based selling effort took the major indices markedly off their session highs. The S&P 500 was up as much as 2.9%, but finished with a 1.3% gain. Financials eased back from an 8.1% advance to close with a 6.7% gain.

Financials were able to put together a 17.6% gain for March. That helped the S&P 500 advance 8.5% during the month, which marks the stock market's first monthly gain in eight months. What's more, that's the stock market's best monthly gain since 2002. However, the S&P 500 concluded the first quarter with a 11.7% loss.

Trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange was in-line with the 50-day moving average as roughly 1.6 billion shares traded hands this session.

Overall news flow was dry this session, but there were a couple of economic reports for participants to chew on. The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city Composite Home Price Index for January declined 19.0% year-over-year, which was a bit worse than the 18.6% drop that was expected.

Meanwhile, the March Consumer Confidence Index came in at 26.0, which is worse than the expected reading of 28.0. The latest reading marked a moderate increase from February's record low reading of 25.3.

There aren't any market-moving earnings reports due ahead of tomorrow's opening bell. However, the ADP Employment report for March will give participants a glimpse into the government's official jobs report, which is due Friday. The March ISM Manufacturing Index is also due tomorrow morning.DJ30 +86.90 NASDAQ +26.79 NQ100 +1.3% R2K +1.6% SP400 +1.6% SP500 +10.34 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1861/2.15 bln/852 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2306/1.64 bln/742