The Traderszone Network

Greece handed the European Central Bank an excuse to maintain the life support for its financial system by persuading its skeptical German-led creditors it’s serious about delivering the policies needed to escape a default. Less than three weeks after a Greek aid meeting broke up in taunts and acrimony, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis assured euro-area governments that his country is aiming to strike a bargain to win the final installments of its 240 billion-euro ($268 billion) aid program.

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The euro rose against a broadly weaker dollar in Europe on Tuesday, with gyrations on the bond market undermining the broad story of U.S. currency strength that has dominated the past year on foreign exchange markets. The latest move in a repricing of risk in the bond market, which analysts are still struggling to explain, was a move higher in longer-dated U.S. Treasury yields overnight, and that should benefit the dollar.

Spot gold was little changed at $1,182.83 an ounce by 0638 GMT, after losing 0.3 percent on Monday. Greece calmed immediate fears of a default on Monday by making a crucial 750 million euro ($837 million) payment to the International Monetary Fund a day early. Euro zone finance ministers welcomed some progress in slow-moving talks on a cash-for-reform deal between Athens and the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank, but said more work was needed to reach a deal.

Australia on Tuesday proposed new legislation to tighten tax loopholes that the conservative government says have allowed around 30 of the world’s largest multinational companies to avoid paying taxes. Under the proposals, released as part of Australia’s 2015/16 federal budget, companies with more than A$1 billion in global revenues that are found to have intentionally avoided paying tax in Australia could be pursued for lost taxes. Apple (AAPL.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O), focusing particularly on their alleged shifting of profits from high-tax countries to low or no tax regimes.

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Castleton Commodities International will buy Morgan Stanley’s physical oil business, the largest and oldest on Wall Street, vaulting the Connecticut-based merchant into the big leagues of global crude and fuel traders. In a long-awaited deal that appears to mark the end of the Wall Street bank’s more than three-decade history as a major player in physical oil markets, Castleton will gain several dozen oil tank storage leases, physical oil supply and purchase contracts, and a team of about a hundred traders.

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Sterling Trader, a broker-neutral direct access trading network, announced it was now offering traders access to the London Stock Exchange and other continental European exchanges via its Sterling Trader Pro system.

Nasdaq announced plans to leverage blockchain technology as part of an enterprise-wide initiative.