U.S. Stocks Charge Higher in Pre-Thanksgiving Day Rally

As for the day's corporate earnings, equipment maker Deere (DE Quote) announced an 18% decline in fourth-quarter profit.

Jeweler Tiffany (TIF Quote), meanwhile, announced a 57% decline in earnings on flagging U.S. sales.

In other company news, Fitch Ratings cut its debt rating on Toyota (TM Quote), putting a negative outlook on the company. Both domestic and foreign automakers have had a rough go of it thanks to flagging demand.

Canadian telecom company BCE (BCE Quote), announced that its leveraged buyout may not take place by its scheduled date of Dec. 11.

Among financial firms, Goldman Sachs (GS Quote) ended discussions with Panasonic (PC Quote) about a potential sale of Goldman's stake in Sanyo. Goldman cited concerns about the price and deal structure as it walked away.

Staying with the financials, Bloomberg reported that Oppenheimer analyst Meredith Whitney cut her earnings estimates for financial firms including Citigroup (C Quote), JPMorgan Chase (JPM Quote) and Bank of America (BAC Quote) as she predicted additional writedowns of bad loans in the coming year.

In the commodities space, crude oil was climbing $3.33 to $54.10 a barrel. Gold was gaining $4.10 to $815.40 an ounce.

Longer-dated U.S. Treasury securities were rising in price. The 10-year was adding 1-4/32 to yield 2.98%, and the 30-year was up 1-30/32, yielding 3.52%. The dollar was higher vs. the euro, yen and pound.

Globally speaking, European exchanges were mixed, as the FTSE in London took losses but the DAX in Frankfurt was flat. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei closed with losses, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng ended with gains.