YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: The S&P 500 spent nearly the entire session gyrating within a nine point range amid light trading volume, but managed to close at session highs following a late flurry of buying and a spike in trading volume.

In what was May's final trading session, more than 1.8 billion shares traded hands on the NYSE, the most in more than one month.

Financial stocks were integral to the late move. After being a source of weakness for most of the session, financial stocks rallied from a loss in excess of 1% to finish with a 1.7% gain in the final hour.

While financial stocks made a strong finish, materials stocks spent the entire session trading with enviable gains. The sector closed 3.0% higher, propped up by diversified metals and mining companies (+4.2%), steel stocks (+3.3%), and gold stocks (+3.2%).

Gold stocks were helped along by a run up in gold prices. Gold contracts settled pit trading with the yellow metal priced at $979.00 per ounce, up 1.8% for the session and more than 20% from their 2009 lows. Gold prices are now less than 3% below their 2009 highs.

Meanwhile, crude oil prices rallied 1.7% to finish at a fresh six-month high of $66.21 per barrel.

A 1.5% drop in the Dollar Index helped underpin a broad ascent by commodities. As such, the CRB Commodity Index finished 1.3% higher. Commodities finished May with a gain of more than 14%, outperforming the S&P 500, which logged a monthly gain of 5.2%. Still, the S&P 500 has finished the last three months with gains.

General Motors (GM 0.75, -0.37) has had an awful month, however. The stock has lost more than half its value since the start of May as the company comes face to face with the government's restructuring deadline. With the threat of bankruptcy looming, shares of GM are at record lows.

In other corporate news, J. Crew (JCG 25.86, +5.40) posted upside first quarter earnings and guided second quarter earnings above the consensus forecast, winning it favor among investors. The stock logged one of its best single-session performances by surging more than 25%.

Dell (DELL 11.57, +0.09) was less fortunate, though. The company faltered after posting better-than-expected earnings.

In economic news, preliminary first quarter GDP showed 5.7% drop for the first quarter, which was a slight improvement from the 6.1% decline that had been reported in the advance GDP reading. Participants showed little reaction to the data since most of it was already known.

Treasuries logged a solid session as they continue to recover from Wednesday's beating. The 10-year Note climbed more than one full point to push its yield back below 3.5%.DJ30 +96.53 NASDAQ +22.54 NQ100 +1.1% R2K +1.9% SP400 +1.6% SP500 +12.31 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1898/2.57 bln/818 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2232/1.86 bln/779