Wall Street rises sharply on renewed Greece hopes

By Sweta Singh

REUTERS - U.S. stocks rose sharply in early trading on Wednesday after Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras signaled he was prepared to accept creditors' bailout offer with some conditions.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite all rose nearly 1 percent, with financial stocks leading the gains.

Tsipras has sent a letter to the creditors outlining conditions for Athens' acceptance of a loan offer, a day after Greece defaulted on a 1.6 billion euro repayment to the International Monetary Fund.

However, euro zone officials said some governments would find it hard to accept Tsipras' conditions.

"Investors are taking a collective sigh of relief that an armageddon type of scenario did not occur with respect to Greece," said Adam Sarhan, chief executive of Sarhan Capital in New York.

"The markets are also rallying from deeply oversold level."

Contributing to the positive tone, U.S. private employers added 237,000 jobs in June, the biggest gain since December, suggesting further improvement in the jobs market.

U.S. Treasuries yields rose to session highs as the stronger-than-expected rise in jobs rekindled bets the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates later this year.

The Institute for Supply Management will release its June manufacturing data at 10 a.m. ET (1400 GMT). The data is expected to show an increase in manufacturing activity for the month.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen 1.1 percent so far this year, while the S&P 500 has remained largely unchanged.

At 9:51 a.m. EDT the Dow Jones industrial average was up 162.51 points, or 0.92 percent, at 17,782.02, the S&P 500 was up 15.81 points, or 0.77 percent, at 2,078.92 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 41.77 points, or 0.84 percent, at 5,028.64.

Eight of the 10 major S&P 500 sectors rose.

Insurer Chubb's shares jumped 33 percent to $126.43 after ACE said it would buy Chubb for $28.3 billion in cash and stock. Ace up 8 percent.

Rival Travelers rose 3.9 percent, providing the biggest boost to the Dow.

Casino stocks jumped for a second straight day of gains following better-than-expected monthly gaming revenue in Macau.

Melco Crown was up 7 percent, Wynn Resorts rose 5 percent and Las Vegas Sands was up about 4 percent.

Chemours, the recently spun-off chemicals performance business from Dupont, fell 5 percent at $15.13 on first day of trading as a public company.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,980 to 783, for a 2.53-to-1 ratio on the upside. On the Nasdaq, 1,739 issues rose and 651 fell for a 2.67-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.

The S&P 500 index showed 6 new 52-week highs and 8 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 47 new highs and 25 new lows.

(Additional reporting by Siddharth Cavale in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)