The ASX is looking for a solid start today after another series of record closes on Wall Street on Friday.
Futures trading on Friday night (Sydney time) indicated a 37-point rise could be in prospect for the start of trading later this morning.
The ASX 200 moved within 100 points of the record close of 7162.5 on February 20 last year.
That saw the ASX 200 rose 1% to a new bull market high last week and is now just 1.4% away from an all-time high.
Bond yields fell in the US and Australia but rose slightly in Europe.
Those fears about inflation rising sharply have faded in the past week and a bit.
US bond yields rose on Friday after falling earlier in the week. The yield of the 10-year Treasury bond rose to 1.59% from 1.53% late Thursday.
But bond yields are well down from the highs they hit earlier in late March, when the 10-year bond traded at a yield of 1.75% on March 30.
Commodity prices and the $A rose which partly reflected weakness in the $US.
Wall Street enjoyed another winning week with the three major indexes all gaining more than 1%. The S&P 500 and the Dow posted their fourth straight positive week, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq had its third gain in three weeks.
The Dow rose 164.68 points, or 0.5%, to 34,200.67. The index had crossed the 34,000 threshold for the first time ever on Thursday.
The S&P 500 rose 0.4% to a new closing high of 4,185.47. The Nasdaq Composite inched up 0.1% to 14,052.34.
For the week the Dow was up 1.18%, the S&P 500 rose 1.37% and the Nasdaq ended the week with a gain of 1.1%.
Japanese shares fell 0.3% last week and Chinese shares lost 1.4% despite solid trade, GDP and other data showing the economy is healthy.
European shares rose 1.3%, thanks to a 0.9% gain on Friday for the Stoxx 600 index, to their highest since the year 2000.
