World equity prices climbed yesterday as investors welcomed a conditional agreement to negotiations aimed at keeping Greece afloat with a bailout and within the eurozone.
European equities jumped almost 2 per cent while Wall Street gained about 1 per cent after eurozone leaders made Greece surrender much of its sovereignty to outside supervision in return for agreeing to talks on an €86-billion bailout.
However, investors remained anxious that a deal was not entirely in hand and that international lenders, led by Germany, obliged leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to abandon his promises of ending austerity.
“This is not over yet. In fact it might be far from over,” said Anthony Lawler, a portfolio manager who invests in hedge funds at investment firm GAM in London.
“It is not at all certain that the Greek government will accept what is proposed.”
The euro fell more than 1 per cent as the Greek deal renewed focus on the prospect that the US Federal Reserve might hike interest rates in September. The euro fell 1.43 per cent to $1.1002, briefly weakening to below the psychologically important level of $1.10. The dollar gained 0.52 per cent to 123.42 yen.
The eurozone’s blue-chip Euro STOXX 50 index hit a two-week high, closing up 1.8 per cent, while the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index gained 1.9 per cent to close at 1,572.05.
MSCI’s all-country world stock index rose 0.8 per cent.
“We’re seeing a relief rally,” said Andrew Milligan, global head of strategy at Standard Life Investments in Edinburgh.
“As we go through the details, however, it’s very clear that there is a sizeable number of hurdles to jump over, especially in Athens.”
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 192.05 points, or 1.08 per cent, to 17,952.46. The S&P 500 gained 19.48 points, or 0.94 per cent, to 2,096.1 and the Nasdaq Composite added 65.51 points, or 1.31 per cent, to 5,063.21.
US Treasury yields rose, but soon pared much of their gains, while yields on low-rated government debt in Europe closed the gap on safe-haven German alternatives.
Benchmark US Treasury 10-year notes were last down 4/32 in price to yield 2.4300 per cent.
The gap between Italian and German bond yields narrowed to a two-month low of 1.14 percentage points in early trading, but later widened to the 1.23 per cent level seen three weeks ago.
Oil prices came off their lows after an Iranian official indicated the Islamic Republic might miss another deadline in securing a nuclear deal integral to lifting Western sanctions on its crude exports.
Crude futures had fallen nearly $2 a barrel on reports that Iran and world powers were closing in on a deal that would allow Iranian oil to re-enter an over-supplied market.
Brent crude for August fell 88 cents to settle at $57.85 a barrel.
US light crude, also known as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), settled down 54 cents at $52.20 a barrel.