YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Continued interest among buyers helped stocks overcome a sluggish start, but it took results from the latest Treasury auction and comments from Treasury Secretary Geithner to lift stocks to fresh highs for 2009. The bullish bias remained intact into the close and helped stocks settle at session highs.

News that the latest batch of initial jobless claims and continuing claims fell more than expected to 550,000 and 6.09 million, respectively, and that the trade deficit deepened more than expected to $32.0 billion in July was followed by a slight improvement in the mood of participants. Yet that wasn't enough to keep Monsanto's (MON 79.30, -4.18) disappointing earnings outlook from inducing enough weakness in the materials sector to undercut the broader market in the first few minutes of trade. An upside forecast from semiconductor outfit Texas Instruments (TXN 25.00, -0.14) also had little positive impact.

However, buyers quickly stepped in to bid stocks back into the green, but gains in the broader market were relatively limited until the results from a $12 billion auction of 30-year Treasuries showed a high yield of 4.24% and an above average bid-to-cover ratio of 2.54. The results showed that investors remain interested in the government's long-term debt and helped drive the 30-year Bond up more than two points and the benchmark 10-year Note up roughly one point.

Stocks were also helped along by Treasury Secretary Geithner's indication in his testimony before Congress that policymakers are in a position to evolve their strategy with the goal of repairing and rebuilding the economy's foundation for future growth. Geithner also said that it is unlikely more bank bailout money will be needed, so its contingency provision can be removed from the budget.

In a separate speech, President Obama said last evening in his latest step toward health care reform that a health insurance plan of $900 billion over 10 years will be funded with spending cuts and tax increases. Managed care stocks responded by making a 2.8% gain this session.

Energy stocks made some of the best gains this session. They settled with a 1.5% gain as natural gas prices and crude oil prices advanced. Even though natural gas saw a smaller-than-expected draw in inventories, the commodity rallied to close pit trade with a 15% gain at $3.25 per contract. Oil prices oscillated despite a larger-than-expected inventory draw, but still finished 0.8% higher at $71.91 per barrel. Oil prices received help from news that OPEC left its production targets unchanged, as expected, and the IEA expects global demand to strengthen.

Telecom stocks closed 2.1% higher, the best gains of any major sector, but even their advance didn't match those of airline stocks, which helped the Amex Airline Index ascend 6.7%. Some of that strength was owed to an upgrade of UAL Corp (UAUA 7.60, +1.15) by analysts at JPMorgan.

Still, the broad-based gains helped the stock market register its fifth straight gain and reach levels not seen in 11 months. What's more, trading volume on the NYSE eclipsed its 50-day and 200-day moving average.DJ30 +80.26 NASDAQ +23.63 NQ100 +1.0% R2K +1.5% SP400 +1.2% SP500 +10.77 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1781/2.48 bln/868 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2309/1.49 bln/723