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Wall St up as Europe tackles crisis

New York - US stocks posted solid gains on Wednesday as investors took heart from signs of progress in Europe in dealing with the eurozone debt crisis.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 102.55 points to close at 11 518.85.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 21.70 points (0.84 percent) to 2 604.73, while the S&P 500, a broader measure of the markets, climbed 11.71 points to 1 207.25.

"A groundswell of enthusiasm over progress in Europe is lifting Wall Street higher," said Sameer Samana at Wells Fargo Advisors.

A day after Slovakia blocked an expansion of the eurozone emergency fund in parliament, Slovak political parties agreed Wednesday to hold a new vote this week that they said would see it approved by Friday.

All the other 16 eurozone members have already ratified the plan to enhance the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), a tool created last year after debt-riddled Greece took a bailout from the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said that European banks "urgently" need to recapitalize to weather the sovereign debt storm.

Wall Street investors also digested the minutes of the last Federal Reserve policy-setting meeting released on Wednesday, which showed that some participants wanted the central bank to resume large-scale asset purchases, or quantitative easing, to boost the weak economy.

"While in our view even QE3 would do little to improve near-term growth or employment, it might at least temporarily support confidence in financial markets," said Harm Bandholz, chief US economist at UniCredit Research.

Aluminum giant Alcoa, which kicked off third-quarter earnings season late on Tuesday with disappointing results, slumped 2.4% to $10.05.

But beverage and snack giant PepsiCo on Wednesday posted improved earnings in line with market expectations, sending its shares up 2.9% to $62.70.

Cash-strapped apparel maker Liz Claiborne soared 34.1% to $6.84 after announcing it has agreed to sell its Liz Claiborne, Monet and Kensie brands and has completed the sale of its Dana Buchman brand in a bid to pare debt.

US-traded shares of Research in Motion, the Canadian maker of the BlackBerry, fell 2.2% to $23.88. Outages dogged users of the popular smartphone's dedicated network for a third straight day Wednesday.

The bond market extended Tuesday's losses. The yield on the 10-year Treasury advanced to 2.23% from 2.16% late on Tuesday, while that on the 30-year Treasury rose to 3.21% from 3.11%.

Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.

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