21.   However, a weak reading in the weekly Johnson Redbook retail-sales data released in the afternoon did manage to buoy prices a bit.

22.   However, there is little hope that the rapid consolidation among financial-services firms might soon resume and help buoy stock prices of brokerage firms.

23.   If the organization cuts production to buoy oil prices, it could aggravate the risks of a global recession.

24.   John Bridges, a metals analyst at J.P. Morgan in New York, said the prospect of a falling supply of gold had also buoyed prices.

25.   Low rates have been a tonic for stocks, buoying prices for most of this year.

26.   Meanwhile, investor optimism that lower interest rates will prolong the economic expansion and eventually translate into higher corporate profits also helped buoy share prices.

27.   Not even purchases of Treasury securities by the Federal Reserve Board buoyed prices in light trading.

28.   Now, economists say, yields are more likely to fall, buoying bond prices.

29.   Oil prices were also buoyed because U.S. and European oil inventories were far smaller their historic averages.

30.   Petroleum prices were buoyed by forecasts of increased demand and tight supplies, analysts said.