BEIJING (AP) – Asian stocks rose Tuesday following U.S. advances and optimism over Greek debt talks.
KEEPING SCORE: Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.9 percent to 20,809.42 points and the Shanghai Composite Index added 0.6 percent to 4,503.79. Seoul’s Kospi rose 1.3 percent to 2,081.20 and Sydney’s S&P ASX 200 advanced 1.3 percent to 5,684.30. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.8 percent to 27,286.77 and India’s Sensex added 0.2 percent to 27,786.40. Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Jakarta advanced while New Zealand and Manila declined. On Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index both gained 0.6 percent and the Nasdaq composite added 0.7 percent.
WALL STREET GAINS: U.S. stocks gained on deal news in health care and energy. Health insurer Anthem announced a $47 billion bid to acquire competitor Cigna. Cigna rejected the bid as inadequate. Shares in Williams Cos. rose 26 percent after a $48 billion buyout offer from Energy Transfer Equity. Williams rejected that but said it might put itself up for sale.
GREEK DEBT TALKS: Greece offered economic reforms that its European creditors consider closer to being acceptable. At a meeting Monday, leaders of the 19 nations that use the euro currency said the offer by the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras might form a basis to break a four-month deadlock. The Greek stock market surged by 9 percent. Still, the two sides failed to reach a deal that might get Athens new loans at a time when its reserves of cash are running low.
ANALYST’S TAKE: European leaders are “discussing tactics, ploys, tricks and other ruses to avoid a hard default by Greece,” said Carl B. Weinberg of High Frequency Economics in a report. “What is not addressed in any way is the longer term uncomfortable truth that Greece cannot service the debt that it has undertaken.”