The Australian share market will be starting trading this morning with modest gains of around 10 to 15 points after a record finish in New York on Saturday morning, our time.
While Australian shares ran out of puff last week, markets in other parts of the world saw solid gains.
The US market was up around 0.6%, Eurozone shares rose 1.3% helped by progress towards a Greek deal (which was finalised for the time being late Friday night) and better economic data and Japanese shares jump 2.3% to a 15 year high.
Chinese shares also rose ahead of the New Year holiday.
Australian shares rose only 0.1% with more mixed earnings results, but support from a takeover of Toll Holdings by Japan Post and expectations of more possible deals to come helped sustain confidence.
Bond yields rose but commodity prices fell slightly, with oil and gold weaker.
The Aussie dollar managed to get back above $US0.78 and ended trading at 78.42 USc on Saturday.
That’s three quarters of a cent above the level the currency was trading at on February 2, the day before the surprise 0.25% rate cut by the Reserve Bank the next day.
Our market ended the week with a gain of a tiny 0.1% rise after closing lower on Friday afternoon.
The ASX200 index fell 22.7 points, or 0.4%, to 5881.5, while the All Ords lost 24.2 points, or 0.4%, to 5845.6.
The deal with Greece came in time to influence trading on Wall Street and help push the Dow and S&P 500 to new record highs as a result, while the Nasdaq had its eighth straight day of gains.
Greek and eurozone finance ministers ‘kicked the can down the road’ by another four months, putting off a potentially noisy and damaging showdown with Greece and its new left wing government.
But Athens has to provide a list of reform proposals by tonight our time, so there is still a chance the deal could unravel.
But as a result of the late push, Wall Street’s main indexes enjoyed weekly gains for the third consecutive week.
The S&P 500 climbed 12.85 points, or 0.6% to 2,110.30. That left the index up 0.6% over the week.
The Dow swung from a triple-digit loss to a triple-digit gain, adding 154.67 points by the end of the day, or 0.9%, to 18,140.44.
That left the index at a record high for the first time this year and with an 0.7% rise over the week.
The Nasdaq Composite added 31.27 points, or 0.6%, to 4,952, adding 1.3% over the week.
The tech-orientated index has outperformed other benchmarks so far this year, gaining 4.6%, compared with a rise of 2.5% for the S&P 500.
