Australia Stocks Rise, With Miners Especially Strong

Australian stocks rose with their global peers Tuesday morning, celebrating the announcement of a bailout deal between Greece and its creditors, with the S&P/ASX 200 up 1.7% about a half hour into trade. Some of the best blue-chip gainers were in the mining space, with BHP Billiton Ltd. and Rio Tinto Ltd. up 3.4% each, while Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. jumped 4.5%, and Sandfire Resources rallied 5.5%. Among the heavily weighted financial shares, investment bank Macquarie Group Ltd. rose 2.3%, while Westpac Banking Corp. was up 1.9% after announcing the sale of some of its Pacific island operations. Shares of Qantas Airways Ltd. managed to climb 2.5%, but rival Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd. was flat as reports said the airlines had cleared the backlog of stranded passengers after an ash clound near Bali, Indonesia, forced flight cancelations there.