YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Stocks stumbled in the early going, but strength among blue chips and financials helped the broader market to fight its way back to log an impressive gain for the session.

Participants appeared unfazed by a large batch of better-than-expected earnings reports this morning. In turn, stocks found little support and traded lower during the first few minutes of the session.

Despite the downward drift by the broader market, blue chips showed resilience. Travelers (TRV 51.70, +3.68) and 3M (MMM 78.79, +2.46) were consistent leaders in the Dow Jones Industrial Average after posting positive earnings surprises. Fellow Dow components AT&T (T 26.10, +0.16), McDonald's (MCD 59.50, +1.17), and Merck (MRK 32.87, +0.19) also posted better-than-expected earnings for the latest quarter. Their collective strength helped the Dow outperform the other headline indices throughout the session.

Financials emerged with strength to provide the broader market with leadership. The sector settled 2.9% higher as regional banks surged 6.1%. Pleasing quarterly reports from PNC (PNC 50.65, +5.69), SunTrust (STI 21.85, +1.09), and Fifth Third (FITB 10.80, +0.69) helped garner support for the group.

Retailers also fared well. They finished the session with a 1.7% gain with help from J Crew (JCG 43.49, +5.75), which made its best single-session percentage gain in nearly five months after providing upside guidance.

Materials stocks also provided support to the broader market. They netted a 1.4% gain as the sector rallied on a pullback by the U.S. dollar. The Dollar Index had been up solidly in the early going, but it pulled back to book a 0.1% loss, just above its 52-week low. Additional support was provided by Freeport-McMoRan (FCX 82.98, +3.26), which was upgraded by analysts at Deutsche Bank, and Dow Chemical (DOW 26.46, +0.96), which posted better-than-expected adjusted earnings for the third quarter.

Steel stocks struggled to match the performance of other members in the materials sector. As a group, steel finished with a 2.8% loss, though Nucor (NUE 44.18, -1.82) and Reliance Steel (RS 42.24, -1.43) both posted positive earnings surprises.

In economic news, the latest weekly jobless claims came in at 531,000, which is worse than the 515,000 that had been widely expected. Continuing claims came in at 5.92 million, which is a tad worse than the 5.97 million that was expected. Leading indicators for September increased 1.0%, which is better than the 0.8% increase that was widely expected. Home prices for August fell 0.3% month-over-month, which missed the 0.3% month-over-month gain that was widely forecast.

Advancing Sectors: Financials (+2.9%), Consumer Discretionary (+1.7%), Materials (+1.40%), Health Care (+0.8%), Energy (+0.8%), Industrials (+0.8%), Tech (+0.6%), Telecom (+0.5%), Utilities (+0.3%), Consumer Staples (+0.2%)
Declining Sectors: (None)DJ30 +131.95 NASDAQ +14.56 NQ100 +0.6% R2K +1.4% SP400 +1.3% SP500 +11.51 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1667/2.29 bln/989 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2041/1.31 bln/991