YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: The stock market moved higher for the third straight session; a fresh 52-week high was set along the way. Though the latest advance was broad based, the stock market surrendered part of its gain after an encounter with near-term technical resistance.

Momentum from recent advances carried over into early action and positioned stocks to extend their gains. The upward trend only seems to have begotten more buying.

A positive bias among broader market participants has taken volatility down considerably. As such, the Volatility Index dropped to a 22-month low. It closed down 5.0%.

The upbeat tone in the broader market lifted advancing issues at a rate of more than 2-to-1 in the S&P 500. Financials and natural resource plays were steady leaders during the session.

Financials finished 1.1% higher. The sector's strength was underpinned by banks, especially regional banks, which tacked on 2.4% to extend their year-to-date gain to 29.8%.

Meanwhile, oil and gas equipment stocks advanced 1.7% to help the energy sector secure a 1.1% gain. A 1.5% rise in oil prices to $82.93 per barrel helped. Oil's climb came in the face of a smaller-than-expected inventory build of 1.01 million barrels for the week ended Mar. 12. In other oil-related news, OPEC opted to keep output unchanged at its latest meeting, as had been expected.

Metal mining giant Alcoa (AA 14.46, +0.66) helped the materials sector stage a 0.7% gain. Reuters reported that the Italian parliament has approved a decree that offers favorable conditions to some industrial consumers after Alcoa had recently threatened to idle smelters in the country.

While buyers kept stocks in positive territory for the entire session, they couldn't propel the S&P 500 past near-term resistance at the 1170 line. Stocks tried twice to overtake the technical line, but they rolled over after they failed on both attempts. Still, stocks were able to close the session with solid gains.

Overseas markets, including those in both Europe and Asia, also made strong gains in their latest showing. Their advances followed better-than-expected employment data out of Britain and minutes from a recent Bank of England meeting that showed committee members voted unanimously to keep interest rate targets unchanged. Japan's central bank voted in its latest meeting to keep its own interest rates low and doubled the amount available under its short-term lending program to 20 trillion yen.

Current Fed Chairman Bernanke and former Fed Chairman Volcker testified about banking regulation to the House Committee on Financial Services this afternoon, but neither made any stark comments.

U.S. data did little for participants this session. Producer prices for February fell 0.6%, which was a sharper drop than expected, but core prices climbed a tame 0.1%, as expected.

The US Dollar Index has rebounded back near the unchanged line, which pushed most commodities modestly lower.

April crude oil pushed to new session highs of $83.09 per barrel after trending higher over the last four hours on weakness in the dollar index. By the end of today's session, crude closed 1.5% higher at $82.93 per barrel.

Natural gas was weak again for the second straight session, relative to most of the commodity complex. April natural gas continued to trade in a narrow range for the second half of today's trading session. Lows of $4.28 per MMBtu were hit approx. 30 minutes after pit trading open and it closed just above that level at $4.30, down 1.1%.

Precious metals traded independently from each other in the last half of today's session with April gold trending lower and May silver moving higher. Gold ended today's pit trading session 0.2% higher at $1124.80 per ounce, just above its pit session low of $1120.90. However, in electronic trading, gold pushed to newer lows for the day of $1120.90 per ounce. Silver remained in positive territory all session and regained some losses in the second half of the day, closing 0.6% higher at $17.455.

Advancing Sectors: Financials (+1.1%), Energy (+1.1%), Materials (+0.7%), Telecom (+0.6%), Consumer Discretionary (+0.5%), Consumer Staples (+0.5%), Tech (+0.4%), Utilities (+0.4%), Industrials (+0.4%), Health Care (+0.1%)
Declining Sectors: (None) DJ30 +47.69 NASDAQ +11.08 NQ100 +0.2% R2K +0.7% SP400 +0.7% SP500 +6.75 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1577/2.22 bln/1093 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2161/1.02 bln/886