YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Broad-based buying drove the stock market to another strong gain today. The action makes for the broad market's best back-to-back performance in more than three months.

All 10 major sectors staged gains, but Materials and Industrials put on the most impressive performances. They scored gains of 1.6% and 1.4%, respectively. Hot Topic (HOTT 9.86, +1.07) and Coach (COH 76.82, +3.43) led the Consumer Discretionary sector to a 1.0% gain. Shares of HOTT spiked to a near three-year high as buying interest heated up in response to stronger-than-expected earnings, upside guidance, and a dividend hike. Encouraging comments from Coach management at a conference took shares of the apparel and accessories outfit up sharply to a record high before momentum began to wane.

McDonald's (MCD 96.96, -3.22) was unable to take part in the Consumer Discretionary sector's climb due to disappointment over the company's latest monthly comparable store sales report. Comparable sales in the US grew by 11.1%, but global growth grew at a less rapid clip of 7.5%.

Heavyweight Apple (AAPL 541.99, +11.30) advanced impressively as investors and traders dismissed news that the Justice Department claims that the company colluded to raise electronic book prices.

The highly influential Financial sector experienced some seesaw-like action before fighting its way to a 1.0% gain. AIG (AIG 28.31, -1.14) failed to follow the rest of the sector after it was learned that the Treasury Department has filed to offer more than 200 million common shares of AIG for $29.00 per share.

Positive sentiment was supported by confidence that Greece's debt swap was met with strong demand. The swap concluded today, but official results will not be released until early Friday morning. Such speculation helped take down debt yields of countries in the eurozone periphery and gave a boost to the euro, which was up 1.0% to $1.327 at the closing bell.

The euro was hardly influenced by the European Central Bank's decision to keep its target interest rate at 1.00%, as had been generally expected. The Bank of England also opted to stand pat on its policy, which has an interest rate target of 0.5% and an asset purchase program of 325 billion pounds.

The only dose of data was the latest weekly jobless claims, which totaled 362,000. Economists polled by Briefing.com had expected, on average, a tally closer to 355,000 on the heels of an upwardly revised claims count of 354,000 for the prior week. The numbers are unlikely to influence expectations for the official monthly payrolls report that will be released tomorrow morning -- the consensus among economists polled by Briefing.com calls for non-farm payrolls to increase by 250,000, private payrolls to climb by 275,000, and a headline unemployment rate of 8.3%.

Strong buying in back-to-back sessions has the S&P 500 up 1.7% in only two days. It also has the Volatility Index back below 18. This past Tuesday a barrage of selling caused the euphemistically labeled Fear Gauge to spike to 21.

Natural gas prices extended their slide with constant futures prices settling pit trade with a 1.3% loss at $2.27 per MMBtu, which makes for a new multi-year closing low for the energy component. Today's weekly inventory report showed a draw of 80 bcf, which is less than the draw of 85 bcf that had been broadly expected. In contrast, oil prices wavered some this morning, but the commodity closed pit trade with a 0.5% gain at $106.63 per barrel.

Precious metals performed well in that silver settled with a 1.0% gain at $33.83 per ounce while gold gained 0.9% to close pit trade at $1698.60 per ounce.

Advancing Sectors: Materials +1.6%, Industrials +1.4%, Health Care +1.2%, Tech +1.1%, Financials +1.0%, Consumer Discretionary +1.0%, Telecom +0.7%, Consumer Staples +0.6%, Energy +0.5%, Utilities +0.4%
Declining Sectors: (None)DJ30 +70.61 NASDAQ +34.73 NQ100 +1.1% R2K +1.3% SP400 +1.2% SP500 +13.28 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1824/1.61 bln/695 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2406/716 mln/615