YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Equities finished near their best levels of the session as enthusiastic investors gobbled up shares after Spain was able to successfully raise EUR3.2 billion through the sale of 12- and 18-month bills. The auctions were met with robust investor demand despite the rise in yields, and shelved contagion fears for the time being. Today’s gains came despite disappointing housing starts and industrial production data which both missed market expectations.

Futures firmed up ahead of the opening bell after Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs, and Johnson & Johnson all reported better than expected results.   

Coca-Cola (KO 73.95, +1.51) rallied after the company announced better than expected earnings of $0.89 per share on revenues of $11.14 billion. The company had robust volume growth in emerging markets as India (+20%), China (+9%), and Brazil lead the way. However, the company warned the European financial crisis and slowdown in China may impact sales in those economies in the coming quarters.

Shares of Goldman Sachs (GS 116.86, -0.87) slipped 0.7%. Weakness comes after the company announced beat on both its top and bottom lines, announcing earnings per share of $3.92 on revenues of $9.95 billion. Annualized return on average common shareholders’ equity was 12.2% for the first quarter. Today’s selling comes after the stock ran into resistance at its 50-day moving average.

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ 64.22, +0.24) pared its early losses and finished the day with a 0.4% gain. The company announced earnings per share of $1.37 which was $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate, and said revenues fell 0.2% year over year to an in-line $16.14 billion. Domestic sales for the company fell 2.2% while international sales declined 2.5% on an operational increase of 0.4% and a negative currency impact of 2.9%.

European financials saw strong gains on the heels of this morning’s Spanish bill auctions. Deutsche Bank (DB 46.31, +1.92) and Barclays (BCS 14.09, +0.53) both saw gains in excess of 3.5% while Spain's Banco Santander (STD 6.55, +0.12) underperforming with a 1.9% advance.  

Apple (AAPL 609.70, +29.57) surged 5.1% after some early selling dropped the stock to a low of $571.91. Buyers emerged following five days of losses in which the stock dropped more than 9%. The company is scheduled to report its quarterly earnings on April 24.  

Treasuries finished near session lows, but losses were rather contained as the long bond’s 0.4% decline to 99 12/32 paced the selling. The 10-yr yield ticked back above 2.00%, finishing at 2.009%. Steepening occurred along the yield curve as the 2-10-yr spread widened to 174 basis points.

Crude oil opened pit trade in positive territory and climbed higher in early floor trade before losing some steam when U.S. equity markets opened. After reaching a session high of $105.07 per barrel, crude pulled-back before settling pit trade with a 1.3% gain at $104.22 per barrel. Natural gas was the underperformer, plunging deeper into the red as its floor session progressed. It was unable to recover its early losses, and settled down 3.5% at a new 10-year low of $1.95 per MMBtu. Action in precious metals was mostly driven by the dollar. Although both gold and silver began pit trade in positive territory, the metals sold-off sharply into the red right as U.S. equity markets opened. Both precious metals fell to their respective session lows; however, this was short-lived as and both erased their losses over the next hour. Gold ended pit trade with a modest 0.1% gain at $1650.90 per ounce, while silver finished its floor session up 0.9% at $31.67 per ounce.

Tomorrow’s data is limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index which is due out at 7 am ET.DJ30 +194.13 NASDAQ +54.42 SP500 +21.21 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1939/1.49 bln/602 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2352/709.8 mln/698