U.S. stocks opened sharply higher Wednesday on revived hopes that Greece would accept the deep spending cuts demanded by the rest of the Euro zone.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped more than 160 points shortly after the opening bell in the wake of a letter written by the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, first published by the Financial Times newspaper, suggested that Greece would finally accept all the demands that were put forward by its creditors over the weekend.
In the letter, written to the debt-ridden country’s international creditrs, Tsipras indicated Greece would accept a bailout they had offered over the weekend, though there were some caveats that prompted skepticism in some European capitals and kept a lid on market gains there.
Tsipras made his offer after Greece became the first advanced economy to default on an IMF loan, said the country would want to delay some of the pension changes and cuts to military spending proposed by the creditors.
Aside from Greek developments, investors in the U.S. were fixed on reports on the labor market.
The ADP private sector employment report showed creation of 237,000 jobs, topping expectations of 218,000.
However the global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that U.S.-based companies announced 44,842 layoffs in June, a 10 percent increase from the previous month. The reduction contributed to the highest level of job cuts by midyear since 2010, it said.