Stocks Rise On European Summit Optimism

The U.S. stock market rallied on Wednesday, although the session was volatile due to rumors emanating out of the EU. At the open, the major averages gapped up, but that move was short lived as the market immediately sold off. In the afternoon, however, buyers came back in and pushed stocks higher to record a strong close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 162 points to 11,869, outpacing both the S&P and Nasdaq. The widely watched blue-chip index traded in a range between 11,694 and 11,891. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF SPY added 1.02% to $124.30. Volume was on the light side with around 288.3 million SPY shares trading hands compared to a 3-month daily average of 316.7 million. The PowerShares QQQ Trust ETF QQQ, which tracks the performance of the Nasdaq 100, fell 0.12% to $57.27. The performance of the QQQ was dragged down substantially by Amazon.com AMZN which fell 12.66% to $198.40 after a disappointing earnings report. The broader Nasdaq was up 0.46% on the day. Crude oil finally pulled back, with NYMEX crude futures losing 3.19% to $90.20. ICE Brent futures lost 1.24% to $109.54 and the United States Oil Fund ETF USO shed 2.07% to $35.06 in NYSE trading. Gold was strong again after breaking out yesterday. COMEX gold futures rose 1.36% to $1,723.50. The SPDR Gold Trust ETF GLD gained 1.09% to $167.40. Silver futures climbed 0.78% to $33.31. Treasuries gave back some of yesterday's gains. The iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF TLT fell 1.75% to $114.17. The yield on the 10-Year Note climbed 9.5 basis points to 2.20%. The U.S. Dollar was essentially flat on the session. The PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish ETF UUP, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of foreign currencies, was down 0.02% to $21.50. The closely watched EUR/USD pair is currently trading at $1.3890.