US Market Commentary (After Market Close): Participants Positive on Greece Bailout Speculation

Stocks pushed higher in broad-based fashion as participants took their cues this session from the dollar, which was weakened despite conflicting reports about whether Germany will lead a bailout for Greece.

Concern for the fiscal health of Greece had sent many global participants to seek safety in the U.S. dollar during recent sessions, such that the dollar hit a multimonth high against competing currencies last week. However, speculation today that Greece could receive help from Germany gave the euro strength, which dropped the Dollar Index for a near 0.7% loss this session.

There hasn't been any official statement regarding whether Germany will support Greece or if any plan would offer support to other troubled European countries, like Portugal and Spain. Notably, any such plan would likely weigh on Germany's fiscal health, but the market still treated the notion of any such effort as a positive.

Given the greenback's weakness this session, natural resource plays made the strongest moves. As such, materials stocks advanced a collective 2.5%. An upgrade of Monsanto (MON 75.72, +1.51) from analysts at Bank of America's Merrill Lynch helped shares of the seed company show leadership.

Morgan Stanley's upgrade of Caterpillar (CAT 53.53, +2.75) helped shares of the industrial outfit log their best session in nearly one month. The stock was a primary leader in the Dow, which had been up more than 200 points at its session high.

Fellow Dow component Coca-Cola (KO 54.01, +1.36) also provided leadership to blue-chips, even though it missed Wall Street's consensus earnings estimate for the latest quarter.

Energy stocks were broadly strong as all 39 of the components in the S&P 500 Energy Sector advanced this session. Their collective 2.0% gain came with help from the broader market and a 2.6% rise in oil prices to $73.75 per barrel.

This session's broad-based advanced helped financial stocks recoup some of their losses from the prior session. It had been whipsawed from an early gain of more than 1% to a modest loss before it settled with a 1.1% gain. Bank of America (BAC 14.47, -0.01) and Citigroup (C 3.18, +0.03) saw mixed interest amid news that Standard & Poor's lowered its outlook on the pair to Negative from Stable.

A weak session for Treasuries sent the benchmark 10-year Note down 19 ticks. A 2.83 bid-to-cover ratio and an indirect bidder take of 51.2% in this afternoon's $40 billion auction of 3-year Treasuries failed to offer support. The benchmark Note will be back in focus tomorrow, when a widely-watched auction of 10-year Treasury Notes will take place at 1:00 PM ET. An auction of 30-year Bonds will follow on Thursday at 1:00 PM ET.