YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: espite a slow, choppy start, stocks climbed in afternoon trading and finished with healthy gains. The Nasdaq outperformed the other headline indices as shares of large-cap tech stocks rebounded from their losses in the prior session.

Tech was the only sector to finish in the red Wednesday, but it bounded back this session to close with a 3.2% gain. The sector's rebound was led by large-cap tech holdings.

Though tech's move was impressive, consumer discretionary stocks staged the best advance. The sector closed 3.4% higher as 78 of its 81 components logged gains.

Financial stocks also closed higher, but they lagged the broader market. The sector made a late rally effort, which took it to a 2.4% gain, but the move lost momentum into the close. Financials finished with a gain of 0.6%.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM 33.24, +0.68) provided leadership to the financial sector for the entire session after the company announced first quarter earnings results of $0.40 per share, which bested the $0.32 per share that was widely expected. The company reminded investors that all isn't well just yet by reporting higher loss provisions.

Financial giant Citigroup (C 4.01, +0.68) also made strong gains. The company is scheduled to announce its latest results tomorrow morning.

Economic bellwether General Electric (GE 12.27, +0.44) also reports tomorrow morning. Interest in its shares helped send the industrial sector 2.9% higher.

In economic news, the latest jobless claims data suggest that the pace of layoffs is slowing, but that it isn't getting any easier to find work. Initial claims for the week ending April 11 totaled 610,000, which is down more than expected from the prior week, but continuing claims climbed more than expected to a new record of 6.02 million.

Separately, housing starts disappointed investors hoping to find signs of a recovery in home building. Housing starts for March totaled 510,000, which was below the 540,000 starts that were expected and down from the prior month. Meanwhile, building permits in March totaled 513,000, which is below the 549,000 permits that were expected, and down from February.DJ30 +95.81 NASDAQ +43.64 NQ100 +2.8% R2K +2.8% SP400 +2.7% SP500 +13.24 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1969/2.02 bln/743 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2430/1.60 bln/623