Wall Street set to open higher on hopes of Greece deal
By Sweta Singh REUTERS - Wall Street was set to open higher on Tuesday, a day after the Dow and the S&P 500 registered their worst session since October, as investors hoped Greece would strike a last-minute deal to avoid an exit from the euro zone. Greece is hours away from defaulting on a 1.6 billion euro repayment to the International Monetary Fund. The European Commission made its final push to try to persuade Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to accept a bailout deal he has rejected before. "We are looking at some sort of a bounce from yesterday's sharp decline," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York. "This last-minute talk of a deal is basically causing some short covering." U.S. corporations have limited exposure to Greece, but investors are concerned about the fallout across Europe if the country exits the euro zone. In Asia, Chinese stocks reversed course to end up 5.5 percent after the government and regulators stepped up efforts to reverse a 20 percent slump in the past few weeks. U.S. investors await June consumer confidence data at 10 a.m. ET (1400 GMT). The index is expected to rise to 97.3. S&P 500 e-minis were up 13 points, or 0.63 percent, with 339,891 contracts traded. Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 21 points, or 0.48 percent, on volume of 47,389 contracts. Dow e-minis were up 83 points, or 0.47 percent, with 42,444 contracts changing hands. ConAgra Foods Inc rose 3.2 percent in premarket trading to $44.80 after the packaged foods maker said it would exit its struggling private label foods business. General Electric rose 0.6 percent after it said it would sell its European private equity financing unit to Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Banking for more than $2 billion. For-profit education provider Apollo Education fell 11.5 percent to $13.75 after the company reported lower-than-expected sales on Monday. Juno Therapeutics jumped 39 percent after Celgene signed a 10-year partnership with the company. Celgene was down 1.2 percent. Pentair Plc rose 5.5 pct to $68 after the Wall Street Journal reported that Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management LP disclosed a 7.24 pct stake in the valve maker. (Additional reporting by Siddharth Cavale in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
