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Consumer goods company Jarden Corp. said Monday it has agreed to buy disposable tableware maker The Waddington Group for about $1.35 billion from an investment fund managed by private-equity firm Olympus Partners. The deal “provides a meaningful addition to Jarden’s portfolio while creating opportunities in cross-selling, broadening the distribution platform particularly in the B2B category, and deepening Jarden’s talent bench,” Jarden said in a statement. The deal is expected to immediately boost adjusted per-share earnings and to add about $800 million to 2016 revenue. Jarden will finance the deal through a combination of cash, equity and a mix of bank debt and bonds. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter. Jarden shares were not yet active in premarket trade, but have gained 9.3% in the year so far, outperforming the S&P 500, which is up 0.9%.

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The eurozone summit on Greece’s debt crisis has delivered a bailout deal, European officials said Monday. “EuroSummit has unanimously reached agreement. All ready to go for ESM programme for #Greece with serious reforms & financial support,” Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, said in a post to Twitter on Monday. Discussions between eurozone leaders on the reforms needed from Greece to unlock more aid funding began Sunday and continued for more than 15 hours before breaking. No details on the third bailout deal have been released, with Athens earlier resisting a German demand that it move 50 billion euros ($559 billion) in assets outside Greece as collateral, and with Greece pushing to exclude the International Monetary Fund from involvement in any bailout, media reports said. The agreement eases the risk that Greece will be forced to leave the euro in a “Grexit”. The euro rose immediately after the news to $1.1187.

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HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Chinese stocks headed toward a third day of gains Monday, adding to a previous weekly rally of 5.2% for Shanghai shares, as markets seemed to regain footing amid Beijing’s fresh measures to stem the recent market rout. The Shanghai Composite Index rose by as much as 2.1% in the first few minutes of the session, then turned briefly down by 0.5%, before rebounding to a gain of 0.8%. The Chinese government recently unveiled a flurry of major moves to curb the stock sell-off, including requesting all listed Chinese companies boost their stock price by share-buybacks, stock-incentive plans, employee stock-ownership plans, and other options. Meanwhile, China’s police department has reportedly discovered evidence of “suspected malicious short-selling,” with a special team having arrived in Shanghai at the end of last week to carry out the investigation, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index fell 0.4%, while the mainland-China-tracking Hang Seng China Enterprises Index bounced between small gains and losses. Major Chinese banks and insurers posted broad gains, as China Citic Bank Corp. climbed 1.9%, and Bank of China Ltd. advanced 1.4%, while China Pacific Insurance Group Co. gained 2.2%, and PICC Property & Calsualty Co. rose 1.3%. However, several top-weighted stocks on the benchmark index were weaker, as China Mobile Ltd. declined 1.7%, HSBC Holdings PLC fell 1%, and Tencent Holdings Ltd. dropped 0.3%. Bourse operator Hong Kong Exchange & Clearing Ltd. pulled back by 1.6% after rebounding from recent losses in the previous two sessions. The stock moves also came as China released its June trade data, showing a 2.1% gain for exports in yuan terms against a 6.7% drop for imports.

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Here are the latest trading levels for Asia’s major stock markets:

Tokyo (Nikkei Average ) up 1.2%
; Hong Kong (Hang Seng Index ) down 0.7%
; Shanghai (Shanghai Composite Index ) up 0.3%
; Sydney (S&P/ASX 200 ) up 0.2%
; Seoul (Kospi ) up 0.4%
; Taipei (Taiex ) up 0.8%

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Australian stocks came off their opening lows Monday to sit flat after about an hour of trade, with the S&P/ASX 200 down just fractionally. The big banks pulled back to weigh on the market, as Greece remained without a new bailout deal and with the markets awaiting testimony this week from Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen. Australia & New Zealand Banking Group lost 1.1%, Commonwealth Bank of Australia eased 0.2% lower, and National Australia Bank Ltd. was down 0.3%, though investment bank Macquarie Group Ltd. managed to improve by 0.2% after a sharp Friday rally on Wall Street. Among the miners, iron-ore names gave up some of their strong gains at the end of the previous week (Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. down 0.4%, Arrium Ltd. down 1.9%, BC Iron Ltd. down 3.4%), but some of the gold miners followed the yellow metal higher (Newcrest Mining Ltd. up 1.9%, Perseus Mining Ltd. up 2.4%, Oz Minerals Ltd. up 3.3%). A drop for crude-oil futures pushed Oil Search Ltd. down 1.5% and Beach Energy Ltd. down 1.1%, but also helped support a 2.9% improvement for Qantas Airways Ltd. .

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Japanese stocks rallied in early Monday action, enjoying some uplift from Friday’s strong gains in the U.S., where many Japanese blue chips have listings, while the currency environment remained benign. The Nikkei Average was up 0.9% about half an hour into the session, wiping away the benchmark’s 0.4% loss on Friday, while the broader Topix outperformed with a 1.2% advance. The dollar was holding back above the ¥122 handle (at ¥122.57), and the euro was buying ¥136.49, not too far from the upper ¥136 range seen at the end of the previous week, despite further uncertainty about Greece. Against this background, some of the top exporters saw sharp gains, with Panasonic Corp. up 2.4%, Sharp Corp. up 3.5%, Toyota Motor Corp. up 1.8%, and Sony Corp. jumping 4.9%, though its videogame rival Nintendo Co. vacated early gains to fall 0.6% after news its president Satoru Iwata was dead of cancer at age 55. Shares of Sapporo Holdings Ltd. improved by 2.2% as a Nikkei news preview of its earnings tipped a first-half profit for the company, even as sluggish domestic beer sales likely prompted an operating loss for the period. On the downside, however, Toshiba Corp. fell 1.3% as Kyodo News and others reported the company’s accounting scandal may be larger than previously believed and that its president would likely resign over the matter.

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Eurozone’s finance ministers ended a marathon session with no agreement on Greece’s latest reform proposal late Saturday night, ahead of Sunday’s summit of Eurozone’s leaders. The major point of resistance came from Finland, whose government appeared unwilling to support any new bailout funding for Greece, according to reports from the Finnish media. The Eurogroup of finance ministers failed to even to put together a common statement, and was considering, according to Italian newspaper La Stampa, drafting two options – one with the Finns and one without. On Sunday, the Finnish government would either yield to the eurozone’s pressure and agree to a Greek bailout or a specific European Stability Mechanism emergency clause could be activated, which enables the ESM to grant financial assistance with only 85% of the votes. Finnish newspaper Kauppalehti also reported a third scenario, namely that the Finnish coalition government led by the right-wing True Finns party could be broken up. Meanwhile, the Guardian reported that Italy was ready to take a stance and demand that Germany hammer out an agreement with Greece. Earlier on Saturday, German media reported that Germany’s finance ministry floated a document that outlined a temporary five-year Grexit from the euro, but not from the European Union. Eurozone leaders have demanded tougher reforms from Greece in exchange of what is now calculated at a potential new bailout of €74 billion ($82.55 billion).

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Finland could be the eurozone country pushing for a Grexit in Saturday’s marathon negotiations among eurozone’s finance ministers, the Finnish state broadcaster Yle reported on Saturday. With little official information coming out of the Eurogroup, where talks carried on into the evening, European media outlets were taking center stage in the Greek debt saga. Finish media outlets reported that Finland is pushing for a Grexit, while the German media earlier reported that Germany’s finance ministry floated a document that outlined a temporary five-year Grexit from the euro, but not from the European Union. Meanwhile, Greek newspapers were focusing on the fact that Eurozone leaders demanded tougher reforms from Greece in exchange of what is now calculated at a potential new bailout of €74 billion ($82.55 billion).

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Carrying winds up to 100 mph, Typhoon Chan-Hom slammed the China coast south of Shanghai Saturday, forcing evacuation of 1.1 million people, the Associated Press reported. Zhejiang province, where the storm came ashore,has received about a month’s rain in less than 24 hours, AP said. No deaths or injuries had been reported by Saturday evening.

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While Eurozone finance ministers were taking a break after three hours of talks on Greece’s latest reform proposal, the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported that the German finance ministry is planning to propose a temporary five-year Grexit. The newspaper referenced a document by the German finance ministry that outlines a Grexit of at least five years from the common currency, which would give Greece the time to restructure its debt, while remaining in the EU. The Greek government quickly denied the existence of such a document, while the German side declined to comment. Meanwhile, former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis commented on Twitter that the temporary Grexit plan is in conjunction with his view that German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble wanted to drive Greece out to “put the fear of God” into the French.

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From:: Stock Market News