Local shares will look for another solid start this morning after global markets ended last week on an upbeat note on Friday night, our time.
Thanks to a combination of reasonable economic data, better than feared US earnings, slightly better news on Greece and that further monetary easing in China, shares in most regions ended the week higher.
US shares rose 1.8% (and more on the Nasdaq), Eurozone shares gained 1.2%, Japanese shares were up 1.9%, Chinese shares rose 2.5% and the Australian market ended 0.9% higher.
The absence of any disaster involving Greece saw eurozone shares rise 0.5% on Friday, while in the US S&P 500 and Nasdaq rose to new record highs helped by strong earnings results from tech companies led by Amazon whose shares leapt 14% on Friday alone.
Reflecting the positive global lead ASX 200 futures rose 24 points or 0.4% overnight Friday, pointing to a solid start for the Australian share market later this morning.
While gold and metal prices fell, oil and iron ore prices rose with the latter helped by news that BHP will slow its West Australian iron ore expansion.
Iron ore prices jumped past $US57 a tonne overnight Friday, to take the gains so far this month to more than 20%.
Bond yields generally rose, except in peripheral Eurozone countries where yields fell as worries about the situation with Greece and its possible default, eased.
The Australian dollar rose slightly to top 78 USc and ended on 78.24 as the $US fell.
The S&P 500 rose 4.77 points, or 0.2% higher at 2,117.70, narrowly topping its previous record close reached on March 2. It was up 1.8% over the week.
The Nasdaq ended the session up 36.02 points, or 0.7% at 5,092.08, and added 3.3% over the week.
And the Dow rose 21.45 points, or 0.1% to 18,080.14, and added 1.4% over the week.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq notched its second consecutive closing high on Friday in what has been the best weekly performance for the index in six months.
The Nasdaq was lifted by shares of Amazon, Microsoft and Mattel, which all jumped by more than 10% over the week.
The index’s year-to-date gain is now 7.5% and it is now less than 1% from its all-time intra-day record set in March 2010.
