YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: A falling dollar drove buying in commodities and commodity-related stocks to help the broader market start the session on positive footing, but it was the financial sector that emerged to provide the most leadership.

In complete contrast to the previous session, the S&P 500 spent the entire session trading in positive territory. Early gains were led by the energy sector (+1.4%), materials sector (+1.2%), and financial sector (+2.3%) after the trio had lagged in the previous session.

Advances by energy stocks and materials stocks were underpinned by sharp gains among commodity prices. Specifically, crude oil futures prices climbed 2.6% to $71.78 per barrel, while gold gained 1.1% to settle at $1015.80 per ounce.

The strong bounce by commodities came as the U.S. dollar slumped. That left the Dollar Index to drop 0.9%, which is its worst single-session percentage loss in nearly two months. However, the Dollar Index could not fully penetrate the 2009 lows that it set last week.

Despite a compelling case for commodities, buyers scooped up financials with conviction. That gave the financial sector a gain of more than 2%, the best of any major sector, and helped it settle near session highs.

Real estate trusts saw some of the sharpest moves as momentum buying took the holdings higher ahead of several REIT initial public offerings, but the influence of diversified financial services stocks (+3.5%) had the most impact on the broader financial sector. Shares of Bank of America (BAC 17.61, +0.36) traded as leaders after the stock had its price target raised by influential bank analyst Richard Bove.

Even though there was plenty of leadership from the financial sector, the broader market was range bound for nearly the entire afternoon. That left it to settle a few points off of session highs.

Treasuries saw strength at the long end of the yield curve after the results from a $43 billion auction of 2-year Treasuries showed a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.2 and a high yield of 1.03%. The 2-year Note tacked on 2 ticks to yield 0.95%, but the benchmark 10-year Note gained 9 ticks to yield 3.44% and the 30-year Bond climbed 21 ticks to yield nearly 4.20%. DJ30 +51.01 NASDAQ +8.26 NQ100 +0.1% R2K +0.8% SP400 +0.7% SP500 +7.00 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1526/2.50 bln/1155 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2168/1.27 bln/873