U.S. stock indexes advanced with broad gains in midday trading Wednesday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 1.6 percent, the S&P 500 by 2 percent and the NASDAQ 2.1 percent.

European stocks jumped sharply.

London's Financial Times index rose 3.1 percent to close at 5,319. The CAC-40 in Paris finished up 3.6 percent at 3,073. The DAX index in Frankfurt advanced 4.1 percent to close at 5,406.

In Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei index gained 2 percent to finish at 8,763.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 1.7 percent to finish the day's trading at 20,048.

Gold has plunged $60.15 to trade at $1,815.25 an ounce.

The dollar is trading lower against both the euro and yen.