YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Stocks sported solid gains for the entire session as a batch of positive news items brought buyers into action. However, afternoon trade became rather subdued as the stock market entered a familiar sideways drift.

Global indices got an overnight lift from news that Abu Dhabi has supplied Dubai's corporate flagship, Dubai World, with $10 billion. Several weeks ago Dubai World had requested to freeze its debt payments amid a lack of liquidity. By doing so, Dubai World had rekindled concern about the security of global credit markets.

On a related note, Standard & Poor's lowered its foreign currency sovereign credit rating and local-currency credit rating on Mexico. The announcement follows several other downgrades and cautionary comments made by ratings agencies in the last two weeks.

Speculation of a pick up in merger and acquisition activity helped win support for stocks this session. That was caused by a move by ExxonMobil (XOM 69.69, -3.14) to acquire XTO Energy (XTO 47.86, +6.37) in an all-stock transaction valued at $41 billion. Since that values XTO at $51.69 per share, a premium of roughly 25% over its closing price this past Friday, several related plays in the oil and gas exploration industry (+6.4%) garnered support. Integrated oil and gas stocks (-2.1%) fell out of favor, though, and hampered the broader energy sector (+0.2%).

Financials lagged in the early going, but managed to attract buyers as the session progressed and finished with a 0.6% gain. The sector's slow start stemmed from concerns of shareholder dilution at Citigroup (C 3.70, -0.25), which announced it will repay its $20 billion in TARP securities and terminate its loss-sharing agreement with the government with an issue of $17.0 billion of common stock, with an over-allotment option of $2.55 billion, and $3.5 billion of tangible equity units made up of prepaid common stock purchase contracts and subordinated notes. Meanwhile, the Treasury will unwind its approximate 34% stake in the company.

Citigroup's announcement has given rise to speculation that other TARP recipients like Wells Fargo (WFC 25.49, +0.08) and PNC Financial (PNC 53.36, +0.61) may soon announce repayment plans.

Renewed selling pressure against the U.S. dollar took the Dollar Index down 0.3% and provided broad support for stocks. However, the dollar's decline was particularly beneficial to materials stocks, which climbed 1.5% as commodities prices fell to a 1.0% loss, according to the CRB Commodity Index.

Gains were broad for the entire session, but action was a bit choppy in the early going. Things steadied in the afternoon so that stocks could make a solid close, though. Telecom was the only major sector in the S&P 500 to finish with a loss; it declined just 0.1%.

Advancing Sectors: Materials (+1.5%), Industrials (+1.2%), Consumer Discretionary (+0.9%), Health Care (+0.9%), Tech (+0.9%), Financials (+0.6%), Utilities (+0.4%), Consumer Staples (+0.3%), Energy (+0.2%)
Declining Sectors: Telecom (-0.1%)DJ30 +29.55 NASDAQ +21.79 NQ100 +1.0% R2K +1.6% SP400 +1.5% SP500 +7.70 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1838/1.86 bln/883 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2268/1.07 bln/780