YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Despite choppy trade, stocks scored strong gains today. The effort made for the market's first back-to-back advance of the month.

Caution related to precarious fiscal and financial conditions in Europe initially kept stocks in check this morning, but before long bank stocks and other financial issues began to bounce, providing an impetus for the broad market to make its way higher. Although the move encountered challenges from sellers, stocks showed resilience by staging a gradual climb to close near session highs. Stocks were helped by headlines that suggested BRIC countries are in talks to purchase eurozone debt.

For the second straight session the Nasdaq outperformed its counterparts. Its strength came as semiconductor stocks extended their prior session climb, taking the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index 2% higher to its best level in one month.

Broad buying among commodities helped the CRB Commodity Index climb to a 0.5% gain. It is up only 0.9% this year, though.

Among its more widely watched components, oil was a top performer today. Futures contract prices closed with the commodity priced 2.3% higher at $90.21 per barrel. Elsewhere in the energy complex, natural gas prices scored a 2.6% gain by settling pit trade at $3.98 per MMBtu.

Precious metals performed well, too. Specifically, gold prices gained 0.9% to close pit trade at $1830 per ounce. Meanwhile, silver settled at $41.19 per ounce for an even stronger gain of 2.4%.

Industrial stocks were the best performers in the broad market. As a group, they climbed 1.9%. Energy stocks and consumer staples stocks lagged all session. The two sectors settled with gains of 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively. Best Buy (BBY 23.35, -1.61) was one of the poorest individual names following disappointing quarterly earnings results, which caused many analysts to reconsider the retailer's business structure. DJ30 +44.73 NASDAQ +37.06 NQ100 1.3% R2K 1.8% SP400 1.5% SP500 +10.60 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1932/1.93 bln/609 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2337/1.07 bln/687