* Europe stocks erase gains, close lower as energy weighs
* Oil hits 12-day high, but turns negative on output deal
* Wall Street gains as financials, consumer discretionary
lead
(Adds close of U.S. markets, oil settlement prices)
By Chuck Mikolajczak
NEW YORK, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Global equity markets rallied
on Tuesday as investors engaged in bargain hunting and shrugged
off a downturn in oil prices after hopes for an agreement among
top producers to freeze output faded.
After an extended holiday weekend, Wall Street financials
.SPSY , up 1.8 percent, and consumer discretionary stocks
.SPLRCD , up 2.5 percent, were among the best performing
sectors on the session after showing some of the largest
declines for the year.
Top oil exporters Russia and Saudi Arabia agreed to freeze
output levels but said the deal was contingent on other
producers joining in, a major sticking point with Iran absent
from the talks and determined to raise production.
The uncertainty around the negotiations dented expectations
for a supply cut and sent oil tumbling off its highs. Brent
crude LCOc1 settled down 3.6 percent at $32.18 after hitting a
12-day high of $35.55 a barrel. U.S. crude CLc1 settled off
1.4 percent at $29.04 after touching a high of $31.53.
After climbing as much as 1.1 percent, the S&P energy sector
.SPNY closed up 0.8 percent.
"I take it as extremely positive news that the U.S. market
is rallying on a day that crude is down," said Jake Dollarhide,
chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa,
Oklahoma.
"We may be finally breaking that toxic correlation that
we've been seeing that has been turning the entire financial
world on its head."
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI rose 220.44 points,
or 1.38 percent, to 16,194.28, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 30.66
points, or 1.64 percent, to 1,895.44 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC added 98.44 points, or 2.27 percent, to 4,435.96.
The S&P 500 has rallied after closing at its lowest level
since February 2014 on Thursday, notching its best two-day
performance in six months.
The MSCI World equity index .MIWD00000PUS was up 0.99
percent.
Shares in Europe lost ground after a 6 percent rally in the
prior two sessions as oil faded, with the pan-European
FTSEurofirst 300 stocks index .FTEU3 closing down 0.43
percent. The STOXX Europe 600 basic resources index .SXPP fell
0.8 percent after rising as much as 3 percent in earlier
trading.
The yen JPY= strengthened against the dollar to 113.96
following the oil announcement, which dented risk appetite. It
remained well off a 15-month high of 111.99 yen per dollar hit
last week, when investors piled into the yen as a safe haven and
expectations faded that the Federal Reserve would raise interest
rates this year.
The dollar .DXY rose 1.02 percent against a basket of
major currencies while the euro EUR= edged lower at $1.1136,
down from last week's four-month high of $1.1377.
Ten-year U.S. Treasury notes US10YT=RR lost 11/32 in price
to yield 1.7827 percent, as demand for safe-haven bonds was
trimmed by the rally in equities and competing corporate bond
supply led by Apple AAPL.O .
Gold XAU= , which had its best week in four years last
week, edged down 0.78 percent at $1,199.86 after rising as high
as $1,216.80 as gains in U.S. equities eased demand for the
yellow metal.
Copper CMCU3 edged down 0.11 percent at $4,556.85 a tonne.