London open: Footsie gains after agreement reached on Greece

The Footsie jumped on news that Monday's Euro-summit had reached an agreement on a bail-out for Greece.

Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem said the Greek deal will need to be voted in parliament after it has been discussed with the Eurogroup on Wednesday. A formal decision will then follow by the end of the week, he added.

As of 08:46 the FTSE 100 was higher by 55.31 points to 6,728.61 points.

After almost 17 hours of talks in Brussels Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was able to clinch an agreement with international creditors which will pave the way for the start of talks on a third bail-out programme.

Nevertheless, some market commentary was highlighting the fact that Tsipras appeared to have done worse for his country than the deal which was offered by creditors before he called the latest referendum.

The Dax-30 was up by 1.09% to 11,438.97 points and the Cac-40 by another 1.38% to 4,970.86

In parallel, the yield on 10-year Gilts was higher by five basis points to 2.13% and that on German Bunds of similar maturity by four to 0.94%, as risk aversion receeded. After an initial bounce euro/dollar turned around to trade lower by 0.61% to 1.1097.

Acting as a backdrop, Chinese exports grew by more than expected by economists in June, rebounding by 2.8% over the month (Consensus: 1.0%) to reach a four-month high, pointing to a policy-driven rebound in domestic demand, according to Capital Economics.

"The underlying picture is that as some of the factors that weighed on external demand earlier this year, such as an unusually weak Q1 in the US, have faded, export growth has rebounded," Julian Evans-Pritchard, China economist at the above think-tank said in a research note e-mailed to clients.

Alent rockets as US buyer steps in

Shares in FTSE 250-listed Alent surged 45% on news that US chemicals business Platform Specialty Products will buy the company for around $1.35bn in cash. The board of Alent intends to unanimously recommend the transaction to its shareholders, who will be entitled to 503p a share under the terms of the deal. The figure represents a premium of around 49% to Alent’s closing price of 337.7p on 10 July.

Nostrum Oil has made a further approach to Tethys Petroleum regarding a possible offer the entire company. The possible offer price, whether in cash or shares, of C$0.2185 represents a premium of 46% over the closing share price on the Toronto Stock Exchange as of 9 July. As part of the transaction Nostrum is willing to extend interim funding to Tethys even before any shareholder vote takes place.

Energy company BG Group has started up and loaded its first liquefied natural gas from the second production train at the Queensland Curtis LNG (QCLNG) facility in Australia. The first LNG from Train 2 set sail on the Maran Gas Posidonia. At plateau production, which is expected mid-2016, both trains at the Queensland facility will be producing enough LNG to load ten vessels per month combined, exporting around 8m tonnes per year, the company said.

Polymetal has purchased a 100% interest in the company holding the licence for the Primorskoye silver-gold property located in the Magadan region of Russia from Decamor Investments for an initial consideration of $4.5m. The company intends to complete at least 15km of exploration drilling before 20 September 2016 and to obtain an audited Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant reserve estimate under the JORC standard and pay the deferred consideration before 31 December next year.

Market Movers
techMARK 3,168.42 +0.69%
FTSE 100 6,714.16 +0.61%
FTSE 250 17,594.36 +0.62%

FTSE 100 - Risers
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 544.50p +2.54%
Shire Plc (SHP) 5,525.00p +2.31%
Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (MRW) 175.80p +1.74%
Whitbread (WTB) 5,195.00p +1.66%
Barclays (BARC) 272.50p +1.66%
Mondi (MNDI) 1,478.00p +1.65%
3i Group (III) 546.00p +1.49%
Carnival (CCL) 3,439.00p +1.48%
CRH (CRH) 1,873.00p +1.46%
Schroders (SDR) 3,149.00p +1.45%

FTSE 100 - Fallers
Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 4,110.00p -1.01%
Fresnillo (FRES) 667.50p -0.67%
BHP Billiton (BLT) 1,220.50p -0.57%
Glencore (GLEN) 243.90p -0.47%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 2,529.50p -0.39%
ARM Holdings (ARM) 1,011.00p -0.39%
Coca-Cola HBC AG (CDI) (CCH) 1,348.00p -0.37%
Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN) 402.50p -0.27%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 655.50p -0.23%
Severn Trent (SVT) 2,148.00p -0.09%

FTSE 250 - Risers
Alent (ALNT) 489.40p +44.92%
Just Eat (JE.) 421.20p +4.70%
Shawbrook Group (SHAW) 361.50p +3.58%
Indivior (INDV) 244.50p +3.43%
Renishaw (RSW) 2,156.00p +3.21%
Diploma (DPLM) 842.00p +2.56%
Aldermore Group (ALD) 269.30p +2.40%
Ted Baker (TED) 3,013.00p +2.27%
IP Group (IPO) 202.80p +2.22%
Rightmove (RMV) 3,330.00p +2.12%

FTSE 250 - Fallers
International Personal Finance (IPF) 409.20p -13.19%
Lonmin (LMI) 77.55p -4.79%
Pace (PIC) 358.00p -4.05%
Vedanta Resources (VED) 441.30p -2.93%
Evraz (EVR) 111.90p -2.19%
Daejan Holdings (DJAN) 6,065.00p -2.18%
CLS Holdings (CLI) 1,840.00p -1.45%
Centamin (DI) (CEY) 59.00p -1.42%
Genesis Emerging Markets Fund Ltd Ptg NPV (GSS) 511.00p -1.16%
Ophir Energy (OPHR) 108.20p -1.10%

FTSE TechMARK - Risers
Filtronic (FTC) 7.75p +3.33%
E2V Technologies (E2V) 233.00p +1.75%
NCC Group (NCC) 220.50p +1.61%
Consort Medical (CSRT) 893.00p +1.19%
Innovation Group (TIG) 31.50p +0.80%
KCOM Group (KCOM) 96.00p +0.79%
Spirent Communications (SPT) 93.50p +0.54%
Dialight (DIA) 525.00p +0.48%
Skyepharma (SKP) 276.00p +0.18%

FTSE TechMARK - Fallers
Sarossa (SARS) 1.71p -7.82%
Oxford Biomedica (OXB) 8.41p -4.76%
Triad Group (TRD) 25.75p -4.63%
Torotrak (TRK) 7.01p -3.11%
Gresham Computing (GHT) 98.00p -1.01%
Promethean World (PRW) 38.00p -0.98%
Oxford Instruments (OXIG) 871.50p -0.85%
SDL (SDL) 405.00p -0.49%
Sepura (SEPU) 159.00p -0.31%
IShares Euro Gov Bond 7-10YR UCITS ETF (IEGM) € 196.45 -0.11%