Wall Street Rallies Ahead of Holidays

The U.S. stock market rose on Thursday ahead of the upcoming Christmas holiday. A stronger euro helped spur risk appetite as the market retraced some of Wednesday's losses.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose around 60 points to close at 13,312. The widely watched blue-chip index traded in a range between 13,216 and 13,314.

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSE:SPY) rose 0.58 percent to $145.12. Volume was lighter than normal with around 132.2 million SPY shares trading hands compared to a 3-month daily average of 135.6 million.

The PowerShares QQQ Trust ETF (NASDAQ:QQQ), which tracks the performance of the Nasdaq 100, closed the day flat. The QQQ has risen almost 19 percent in 2012 on the back of big gains in large tech stocks such as Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL).

Crude oil was slightly lower on the day. NYMEX crude futures, the U.S. benchmark, fell 0.07 percent to $89.92. Brent crude contracts lost 0.22 percent to $110.12. In ETF trading, the United States Oil Fund (NYSE:USO) added 0.18 percent and closed at $32.73.

Precious metals continued their recent slide. At last check, COMEX gold futures were down 1.15 percent to $1,648.80. Silver futures had lost 3.59 percent to $30.00. The heavily traded SPDR Gold Trust ETF (NYSE:GLD) shed 1.22 percent to close at $159.71.

Long-term Treasuries were largely unchanged on the day. The iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NYSE:TLT) was flat on the session. The yield on the 10-Year Note was also unchanged at 1.80 percent.

The U.S. dollar was slightly lower on Thursday. The PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish ETF (NYSE:UUP), which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of foreign currencies, fell 0.09 percent to $21.65. The closely watched EUR/USD pair was last trading up 0.27 percent to $1.3240.