U.S. stock market indexes were sharply higher in midday trading Wednesday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 both jumped about 1.2 percent. The NASDAQ gained 1.4 percent.

European stock markets closed higher. London's Financial Times 100 gained six-tenths of a percent to end at 5,906. The CAC-40 in Paris advanced half a percent to finish at 3,793. And the DAX in Frankfurt jumped 1.3 percent to close at 7,268.

Earlier in Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei index gained nearly four-tenths of one percent to finish at 9,963. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was up 1.2 percent to finish the day's trading at 21,927.

The price of gold jumped more than $17 to trade at $1,585.02 an ounce.

The dollar was lower against the yen and the euro.