North American stocks rose at the start of trading on Tuesday over renewed confidence that Greece will avoid a debt default.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 42 points or 0.3 per cent, to 12,222. The broader S&P 500 rose 7 points or 0.6 per cent, to 1286. In Canada, the S&P/TSX composite index rose 83 points or 0.7 per cent, to 12,941.
Sino-Forest Corp. fell 21 per cent after major shareholder John Paulson sold all of his holdings in the troubled Chinese forestry company by last Friday, according to regulatory filings. This certainly suggests that he's not sticking around to see how the current controversy over how the company is valuing its assets works out.
Meanwhile, commodity producers were strong, with DuPont up 1.7 per cent, Alcoa Inc. up 1.5 per cent and Chevron Corp. up 1.2 per cent. In Canada, Suncor Energy Inc. rose 1.8 per cent and Teck Resources Ltd. rose 0.9 per cent.
As well, Research In Motion Ltd. rebounded modestly after a sharp selloff on Friday and Monday, rising 1.6 per cent However, Encana Corp. fell 2.2 per cent after it ended a joint venture program with PetroChina to develop a $5.4-billion shale gas project.
Walgreen Co. fell 5.2 per cent after the U.S. drugstore chain reported better-than-expected fiscal third quarter earnings but announced that its relationship with Express Scripts Inc. had fallen apart. Express Scripts pays Walgreen fees to fill prescriptions.
David Berman