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The Dow Jones briefly passed 13,000 on Tuesday for the first time in nearly four years. That milestone builds on a strong start to 2012 that's seen the blue chip index up more than 6% since January. But the Sow didn't close above that threshold, rising 16 points to close at 12,965. The NASDAQ dipped three.

The market got an early lift after a second bailout package for Greece to prevent the country from going bankrupt as well as from strong earnings from Home Depot and Macy's. Investors are now setting their sights on 14,164- that's the Dow's all-time high set back in October 2007. But with gas prices soaring, most traders on Wall Street believe that landmark is a ways off.

Crude oil prices are at their highest level since May as traders are concerned about Europe's oil supplies after Iran said it would stop selling to Britain and France.

Dell's quarterly profits missed Wall Street's estimates and the tech giant blamed lower demand for PCs and increased competition from Apple's Pad.

Barnes & Noble will sell a cheaper version of its Nook tablet for $199, the same price as its biggest competitior- Amazon's Kindle Fire. The new eight gigabyte version is $50 cheaper with half the memory of the original Nook.