US stocks gain ahead of new talks on Greece

NEW YORK — US stocks posted healthy gains on Tuesday after a volatile day of trading driven by more twists and turns in Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 44.73 points (0.40 percent) to close at 11,105.85.

The broader S&P 500 climbed 10.60 points (0.91 percent) to 1,172.87, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rallied 37.06 points (1.49 percent) to 2,532.15.

A late rally capped off a rollercoaster day as investors hoped that. talks on Wednesday between the leaders of Germany, France and Greece would help rein in the financial turmoil emanating from the eurozone.

“US stocks are moving mostly to the upside on a strong advance across the pond as Germany and France are set to talk with Greece amid growing uncertainty regarding a potential debt default,” analysts at Charles Schwab said in a research note.

The teleconference between German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou comes after markets were shaken in recent days by renewed fears of a Greek default.

However, Germany and France denied rumors that they had new proposals for a Greek rescue plan.

The rumors, together with reports that China was in talks to buy Italian government bonds, sparked wild volatility on both sides of the Atlantic as stocks bounced up and down all day.

On Wall Street, industrials and tech companies were the strongest performers on the Dow’s 30 list of blue-chip stocks, with General Electric surging 2.7 percent, Intel rising 2.4 percent and Cisco
gaining 1.6 percent.

Intel got a boost from an announcement that it had partnered with Google to make chips for Google’s Android smartphones. Google’s own stock was down 0.1 percent.

Shares of Best Buy plunged 6.5 percent after the US electronics retailer cut its earnings forecast and reported that its second-quarter profit fell 30 percent amid weak consumer spending.

Best Buy has been assailed by doubts about how it will survive competition from online retailers like Amazon, which has been moving aggressively into electronics.

Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note increased to 1.99 percent from 1.93 percent late Monday, while that on the 30-year bond rose to 3.32 percent from 3.24 percent.

Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.