Perhaps the most negative thing one could say about Friday’s market, is that in the absence of anything resembling normal trading volume the market’s need to push continuously higher just didn’t have quite the same motivation.

Aside from the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which we’ll get to in a minute, stocks finished essentially flat, but not so flat that they didn’t still end with two-and-a-half year highs. The S&P 500 added 3 points to 1343, while the Nasdaq gained 2 points to 2834.

The Dow, however, had a little more oomph, ending up 73 points to 12,391,  led by the in-no-way-related triumvirate of Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT), Travelers (NYSE:TRV) and Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT).

Although it was probably statistically insignificant, the Dow’s outperformance was somewhat representative of a (relatively) stronger day from large-cap stocks. We noted in this space on Thursday that a major contributor to overall market momentum during February had undoubtedly been a push by small-cap stocks, whose outperformance was beginning to close the gap on the early-2011 strength shown by large-caps.

On Friday, small-caps reverted back to their January form, with the Russell 2000 gaining just 0.1%, finishing in the green only because of a 15-minute push by all stocks that ended the day. It will come to next week’s short four sessions to determine if small-caps have anything left, and if they don’t, how much upside the broader market will have through the rest of the month.

Seemingly not in dispute is the uptrend in commodities, specifically, precious metals, where silver posted another 31-year high and gold, on a less historic bent rebounded to five-week highs. It’s no surprise, of course, that the precious metals miners showed strength: Pan American Silver (NASDAQ:PAAS) gained nearly 7%.

To be fair, outside of precious metals, the sector was mostly in a modest descent. Oil slipped a few pennies to $86.20, while grain prices as a group were off more than 2%.

Paper stocks, of all things, were weak on Friday — sector leader International Paper (NYSE:IP), which has captured the broad market rally during the past five-plus months like few large-caps, was off more than 4% from seemingly nothing more than JP Morgan initiating coverage on the stock with a “neutral” tag.

Bonds ticked slightly lower, moving the yield on the 10-year note back up to 3.59%.