YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Broad-based buying sent stocks to their best levels in more than two years. The move began with help from strong action overseas, where a couple of more sovereign debt offerings helped perpetuate a positive tone.

Greece and Italy both had successful debt auctions yesterday, but today's successful offerings from Germany and Portugal provided further assurance that there is still demand for the region's debt. That helped stir confidence among investors, who drove the EuroStoxx 50 to a 3.0% gain -- its strongest single-session move in three months.

Big gains abroad provided a positive backdrop to for action at home. Strong demand for stocks sent the Dow, Nasdaq Composite, and S&P 500 to new two-year highs. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq 100, S&P 400, and Russell 2000 all recorded fresh three-year highs.

Financials experienced some of the strongest demand of the day. The sector was spurred to a 1.7% gain. Share volume in the sector was highest among banking issues.

An appetite for the relative risk of stocks caused rotation out of the dollar. That left the greenback to tumble 1.0% against a basket of competing currencies, namely the euro. The euro lacked direction in the early going, but it gradually worked its way to a gain of about 1.3% at $1.314.

Treasuries were also weakened by the move to own stocks, but they were able to trim losses following strong results from an auction of 10-year Notes. The auction drew a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.30 and dollar demand of $69.3 billion, which marks the strongest dollar demand since August 2009. The indirect bidder participation rate was 53.6%, the fourth highest in more than two years.

The Treasury's Budget deficit for December totaled $80 billion, down from the $91.4 billion deficit that was recorded last month.

The Fed's latest Beige Book indicated that across the various Fed districts conditions were better in manufacturing, retail, and nonfinancial services than they were in financial services or real estate, which remained weak across all districts. Labor markets were said to be firming somewhat in most districts.

Commodities finished higher across the board today, led by the rally in grains (+3.2%). March soybeans surged 4.5% to settle at $14.15 per bushel, while March corn gained 4.3% to close at $6.31 per bushel. This morning's bullish USDA that U.S. corn inventory levels fell 10.5% to 785 million bushels while soybean inventory fell 15.2% to 140 million bushels.

Energy posted modest gains on the day, led by a 0.9% gain in Feb natural gas, which settled at $4.52 per MMBtu. Feb crude oil gave back of its inventory-induced gains to finish up 0.8% at $91.86 per barrel. News of the resumption of oil flow, in a dimished capacity, in the Trans Alaska pipeline did little to weigh on prices. It was a very quiet session for precious metals, which both finish just above the flat line.

Feb gold ended higher by 0.1% to $1385.80 per ounce while March silver gained 0.1% to finish at $29.55 per ounce.

Advancing Sectors: Financials (+1.7%), Energy (+1.2%), Materials (+0.9%), Tech (+0.9%), Industrials (+0.9%), Consumer Staples (+0.8%), Utilities (+0.5%), Health Care (+0.5%), Telecom (+0.5%), Consumer Discretionary (+0.3%)
Declining Sectors: (None)DJ30 +83.56 NASDAQ +20.50 NQ100 +0.7% R2K +0.8% SP400 +0.6% SP500 +11.48 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1785/1.88 bln/859 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2158/960 mln/854