By Chris Fournier The loonie advanced against 7 of its 16 most-traded counterparts tracked by Bloomberg, while the New Zealand and Australian dollars were the best-performing major currencies. The U.S. dollar and yen weakened on speculation Europe will help Greece contain its budget

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 1.2 percent at 9:42 a.m. in New York. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index increased 1.6 percent after falling 6.1 percent in the past three sessions. Greece’s ASE Index climbed 5 percent, rebounding from four days of losses. The euro strengthened 0.7

“I feel as encouraged now as I was six years ago,” Chakravarthy Rangarajan, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, said in an interview in New Delhi today. The economy may grow 8 percent in the year starting April 1, he said. Harley-Davidson Inc. plans to begin sales

The amount of so-called distressed securities, or bonds yielding at least 10 percentage points above benchmark rates, fell to $117 billion from $250 billion six months ago, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data. The market is pricing in a default rate of 0.3 percent in a year,