US Stocks: Equities have been dancing to Crude Oil’s tune since the start of chaos in the Middle East and northern Africa in January. Players fear rising Crude Oil prices could derail the economic recovery. But, Wednesday economy trumped Crude Oil.

The day’s rally was broad with 8 out of 10 S&P 500 sectors finishing higher.

The DJIA .DJI closed up 18.78 pts, or 0.07%, at 12,066.89, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 2.11 pts, or 0.16%, to close at 1,308.44, ad the NAS .IXIC tallied up + 10.66 points, or 0.39 percent, at 2,748.07.

US private sector employers added more jobs than expected last month in a sign of steady improvement in the labor market, ahead of the closely watched US government’s monthly non-farm payrolls report on Friday.

Texas Instruments Inc (NYSE:TXN) gained 3.3% to 36.14 after JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) upgraded the semi-conductor sector, including Texas Instruments, saying an inventory correction was nearing an end and demand is improving.

Apple shares (NASDAQ:AAPL) boosted the NAS after Chief Executive Steve Jobs surprised investors by personally presenting the new iPad at an event in San Francisco. The stock rose 0.8% at 352.12.

Shares in Yahoo Inc (NASDAQ:YHOO) rose 3.3% to 16.63. The Company is in advanced talks to leave its Japanese Joint Venture and free up as much as US$8B to compete with Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Facebook.

Softs led the commodities complex higher Wednesday, posting a 1.4% gainer.

Headline risk from the Middle East drove Apr WTI Crude Oil higher by 2.6% to 102.23 bbl, marking its 1st close above the100 level since late September 2008.

There were several  not substantiated reports saying that fighting in the Libyan Oil Terminal city of Masra El Brega had escalated.

Apr Nat Gas shed 1% to close at 3.81 per MMBtu.

Apr Gold settled higher by 0.6% to 1437.70 oz. after trading to a new all-time high at 1441.00 oz.

May Silver gained 1% to close at 34.82 oz. marking a fresh 30 yr high at 34.97 oz. Both metals moved higher on a flight to safety as well as weakness in the USD.

The semi-conductor stocks scored a 1.4% gainer after analysts at JPMorgan upgraded the space.

Retailers were relatively strong ahead of their monthly same-store results, as they climbed 0.6% as a group.

More selling sent the Amex Airline Index down 0.9%, which comes on top of its 3.0% loss in Tuesday’s session. Higher Oil prices are the primary reason.

Corporate news was of little concern to the overall market, but a stronger-than-expected ADP Employment Change attracted attention. The report indicated that private payrolls increased in February by 217,000, which is considerably greater than the increase of 163,000 that had been expected, on average, among economists polled.

Although the positive ADP Change augurs well for the official nonfarm payrolls report Friday, US Fed Chairman Bernanke reminded the House of Representatives during his semi-annual monetary policy testimony that unemployment remains high.

That said, the Fed’s latest Beige Book states that wage pressures remain steady, even though overall economic activity improved across the various Fed districts.

Advancing Sectors: Energy (+0.5%), Tech (+0.5%), Industrials (+0.4%), Consumer Discretionary (+0.4%), Telecom (+0.4%), Health Care (+0.3%), Materials (+0.2%), Utilities (+0.2%)

Declining Sectors: Consumer Staples (-0.4%), Financial (-0.7%)

Volume: trade was at 7.69b/shrs on the NYSE, AMEX and NAS, lower than last year’s daily average of 8.47B/shrs. Volume recently been strong on days when the market sells and lighter on buying days

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US Major Market Indexes Technical Analysis

Date	Symbol	Price	Technical Analysis	Support	Resistance
Mar-02-2011	QQQQ	57.14	Neutral (0.20)	57.12	58.88
Mar-02-2011	DIA	120.45	Bullish (0.31)	118.68	120.82
Mar-02-2011	SPY	131.21	Bullish (0.35)	129.30	131.53

The World Markets Snap Shot

DJIA	12066.40	+8.40	+0.07%
S&P 500	1308.43	+2.10	+0.16%
NAS	2748.07	+10.66	+0.39%
S&P/TSX	14144.00	+21.17	+0.15%
Mexico Bolsa	36867.40	+99.35	+0.27%
Brazil Bovespa	67138.00	+895.38	+1.35%
STOXX 50	2958.80	-24.47	-0.82%
FTSE 100	5914.89	-20.87	-0.35%
CAC 40	4034.32	-32.83	-0.81%
DAX	7181.12	-42.18	-0.58%
FTSE MIB	22238.80	+11.52	+0.05%

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Posted by Shayne Heffernan on Mar 3rd, 2011and filed underEquities, Markets, USA.You can follow any responses to this entry through theRSS 2.0You can leave a response by filling following comment form or trackback to this entry from your site