In late trading today, the 10-Year Treasury Note was up by 25/32, lowering its yield to 3.78%; the Dow was up by 52.43 points to 12,866.78; and the Nasdaq was up by 12.75 points to 2,451.24.

The economic news of the day was mixed but generally favored stocks. The level of initial jobless claims fell last week but the move had been anticipated after a sharp rise in the preceding week. Wholesale inventories unexpectedly declined in March but sales increased and turnover times shortened.

But helping to cap the upside for stocks was another increase in oil futures. The price of a barrel of light, sweet crude for next month delivery gained $0.16 on the New York Mercantile Exchange to settle at a new record closing high of $123.69.

By the end of stock trading, the Dow had risen by 0.41% after falling by 1.59% yesterday. The S&P 500 gained 0.37% today and the Nasdaq rose by 0.52%.

Today's 30-Year Bond auction drew relatively good demand. Bids exceeded the $6 billion offering by 2.69 to 1, down from last November's bid-to-cover ratio of 2.98 but still the second best ratio for either an initial or reopening sale since the current issue schedule began in February of 2006. Noncompetitive bids, a gauge of individual investor demand, totaled a little over $27 billion, also the highest in the current issue schedule.

Foreign demand was on the weak side, however. Indirect competitive bids, which include those from foreign central banks, garnered 12.6% of the issue, down from November's award portion of 31.6% but better than the 10.7% in last February's initial offering.

Tomorrow, the Commerce Department will report on international trading activity in March. The last report said the seasonally adjusted value of imports exceeded that of exports in February by $62.3 billion. The deficit figure was much higher than the $57.4 billion forecasters had predicted.

In addition, January's originally reported deficit of $58.2 billion was revised to $59.0 billion. The report said that exports increased by 2.0% from January to February but the larger category of imports rose by 3.1%, the biggest increase since March of last year. The level of both imports and exports in February were the highest on record.

Much of the recent strength in imports has been due to rising oil prices and they rose again in March. But prices of food, a major export, have also been on the rise. Declines in the value of the dollar are also driving the increase in exports. March's deficit is expected to be somewhat narrower than February's but still large. Estimates are for a gap of about $61.0 billion.

10:30 AM EDT : Treasuries are up this morning, helped by the lack of a substantial bounce in stocks after yesterday's declines. The economic data released today might have provided lift for stocks but the indices are currently narrowly mixed.

In today's economic news, the Labor Department reported that the seasonally adjusted level of initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell last week by 18,000 to 365,000.

The decline was not unexpected following a surge of 38,000 the week before. And, despite the decline, the four-week moving average, which smoothes out some of the short-term volatility, rose by 2,500 to 367,000, the highest reading in six weeks.

Initial claims have clearly been on the rise over the last year. For this year to date (eighteen weeks), the average weekly reading has been 355,111. For the same period last year, the average was 316,556.

Today's report said that the level of continuing claims for the week ending April 26 (continuing claims must be at least a week old) fell slightly by 10,000 to 3.02 million. This was a bit of a surprise given the increase in initial claims that week. But the four-week moving average rose by 16,750 to 2,998,750, the highest level in a year.

The average weekly continuing claims reading for the year-to-date (seventeen weeks) has been 2,842,588. For the same period last year, the average was 2,506,588.

The second economic release of the day sent mixed signals but the headline number was more bearish than expected. The Commerce Department reported that the seasonally adjusted level of wholesale inventories contracted by 0.1% in March, the first decline since December of 2006. Moreover, February's originally reported increase of 1.1% was trimmed to a gain of 0.9%.

However, inventory outflows increased by 1.6% in March after slipping in February by 0.5% (originally reported as a decline of 0.8%). This produced an inventory-to-sales (I/S) ratio of 1.09, tying last November for the record low.

The I/S ratio is the value of stocks on hand at the end of a month divided by the value of sales for the month. It indicates how many months it would take to entirely deplete existing inventory at the prevailing sales pace. Low turnover times mean there is high pressure to replace supplies.

Besides the decline in jobless claims and in the wholesale I/S ratio, stocks might also normally get a lift from news that many large retailers saw sales gains last month. However, stocks are battling technical pressure following significant gains over the last two months. Since March 10, the Dow has gained over 1,000 points despite yesterday's better than 200 point plunge.

For Treasuries, besides the increased attraction versus stocks at this time, some rate-lock unwinding is reportedly also providing some lift. Rate locking is the process whereby investment underwriters sell Treasuries short prior to corporate bond sales. If rate levels go up and the sale falls short of expectations, the Treasury hedge offsets some of the loss. Once the auctions take place, the short positions are covered, thereby unwinding the lock. Covering the short position means buying Treasuries.

But the bond market is facing some resistance from more supply being issued today. This afternoon, the Treasury will be auctioning an additional amount of last February's 30-Year Bond issue. The offering will have a face value of $6 billion, $1 billion higher than the last two reopenings.

The last reopening was in November and the sale was generally successful. The bid-to-cover ratio was 2.98, the highest of the six auctions (both initial and reopenings) since the current issue cycle began in February of 2006.

Noncompetitive bids were somewhat soft, however. They totaled $2.9 million, just 0.06% of the issue. But foreign demand was decent. Indirect competitive bids received 31.6% of the issue, the highest award portion of the three reopening auctions in the current issue cycle to that time.

Last February's initial offering was considered weak. The bid-to-cover ratio was 1.82. Noncompetitive bids were decent at $12 million on the $9 billion issue. But foreign demand was soft. Indirect competitive bids captured just 10.7% of the issue . . . .