Stocks Rally As Europe Unveils Crisis Plan [VIDEO]

Stocks are soaring on Wall Street after European leaders agreed to a set of prescriptions for their debt crisis.

The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 204 points to 12,805 in the first half-hour of trading.

Leaders in Brussels unveiled a plan to bail out banks directly from a financial rescue fund. They also said they would ease austerity measures that are causing political unrest and agonizing recessions in Greece and other nations that have gotten financial lifelines.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 23 points to 1,352. The Nasdaq composite index gained 56 to 2,905.

The news out of Brussels also lifted energy prices, on the theory that a cure to Europe's debt woes will remove one of the major drags on global growth. Benchmark oil jumped 5 percent.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)