Stocks End Up 3% on EU Deal, Dow Above 12,000

◼ Stocks slipped from their best levels Thursday, but still closed sharply higher, boosted by an agreement reached by EU leaders on a plan to resolve the region's sovereign debt crisis and after a handful of encouraging economic and earnings reports. - CNBC
◼ S&P 500 Extends Best Month Since ’74, Euro Rises on Debt Accord - Bloomberg
◼ Stocks Rally on Pact in Europe - Wall St. Journal

◼ MERKEL MIRACLE: Merkel Cements EU Leadership Role as She Seeks to Win Back German Voters - Bloomberg

Chancellor Angela Merkel emerged from 10 hours of negotiations in Brussels with a plan to stem the debt crisis that might as well have been written in Berlin.

The German leader forced French President Nicolas Sarkozy to bend to her will on using the European rescue fund only as a last resort, ruled out an automatic crisis-fighting role for the European Central Bank and dragged banks back to the table to take greater losses on Greek debt. She even wrung further budget concessions out of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

“Merkel got what she wanted,” Shada Islam, an analyst at the Friends of Europe policy-advisory group in Brussels, said in a telephone interview. “This has confirmed Germany’s role as the make-or-break player not only in the euro-zone crisis but in European Union affairs beyond Europe.”

◼ EU reaches agreement on Greek bonds - Financial Times
◼ Merkel: 50 pct haircut to cut Greek debt by 100 bln euros - Reuters

Private owners of Greek bonds will accept a 50 percent writedown on their investment, enabling both a 100 billion euro cut in Greece's sovereign debts and allowing a new Greek programme of aid of 100 billion euros, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday.

"Our goal is that the debt of Greece by 2020 is 120 percent (of GDP)," Merkel told journalists after a meeting of euro zone leaders.