Stocks Rebound, Led Marginally Higher By Financials

Stocks rose slightly, Thursday, giving back big gains earlier in the session after the Bank of Japan stepped up its quantitative-easing program and the head of the European Central Bank pledged to maintain its easy-money policies. That enthusiasm, however, was tempered when the Labor Department announced an unexpected rise in new claims for jobless insurance benefits last week, working to drag the major U.S. indices underwater by mid-day.

The session ended with most sectors eking out small gains, paced by financial stocks, which drew support following the central bank actions. Mining and materials stocks also rose, with many traders streaming into precious metals as a hedge against falling currencies.

The BoJ Boom
The Bank of Japan helped send stocks racing Thursday morning after announcing aggressive easing measures to help boost its ailing economy, sending the value of the yen sharply lower. The move was made to stem the country's growing deflationary conditions, leading to a 2.2% gain for the Nikkei Index.

ECB President Mario Draghi reinforced the upbeat mood, pledging to stand firm with the euro-zone's recovery efforts.

Stocks pulled off those gains, eventually turning negative around mid-day after the Labor Department said new applications for state unemployment benefits jumped to 385,000 in the latest week, confounding expectations that claims would drop by 7,000 to 350,000. On Wednesday, a read on private-sector employment also disappointed, spurring concerns about Friday's jobs report, which is expected to show that 200,000 jobs were added in March, down from the previous month.

Commodities
Crude oil for May delivery continued its recent slide, giving up another $1.19 to settle at $93.26 per barrel. May natural gas was up 4 cents to $3.99 per 1 mln BTU. April gold gave back its early gains, closing $1 lower at $1,551.80 per ounce while May silver settled 3 cents lower at $26.77 per ounce. May copper rose 2 cents to $3.35 per pound.

Here's Where The Markets Stood At Day's End

• Dow Jones Industrial Average up 55.76 (+0.38%) to 14,606.11
• S&P 500 up 6.29 (+0.40%) to 1,559.98
• Nasdaq Composite Index up 6.38 (+0.20%) to 3,224.98

• Hang Seng Index down 0.14%
• Shanghai China Composite Index down 0.12%
• FTSE 100 Index down 1.06%

• (+) CBMX, Shares soar after the company reported preliminary quarterly growth in prenatal testing volumes of 124% for the first quarter.
• (+) CLRX, Stock surges after the firm announces it has formed a partnership with Belgium company OncoDNA in molecular diagnostics, its first partnership outside the US.
• (+) ALLT Issue rises after the company secured a $6.5 million order from a Tier-1 mobile operator in EMEA for Intelligent Steering and Value-Added Service (VAS) Licenses. The order is a licensing expansion of an existing Service Gateway deployment.

• (-) MIND, Shares skid in the wake of company's reported Q4 earnings of $0.26 per diluted share, missing analyst estimates of $0.39 per share, and compared to earnings of $0.77 per diluted share the year prior. Revenues for the quarter were $28.4 million, below analyst estimates of $29.10 million, and lower compared to $37.0 million in Q4 2011.
• (-) ADUS, Stock gets hit after Oppenheimer downgraded the issue to Market Perform from Outperform.
• (-) CPWR, Shares lose ground after the company announced late Wednesday that it expects Q4 EPS of $0.05 to $0.06 per share and revenue in the range of $237 million to $241 million, vs. the analyst consensus of $0.16 per share on revenue of $273 million, according to Capital IQ.