The ASX will open strongly this morning after offshore markets shook off more fears about Greece’s financial position.
The overnight trading on the share price futures contract showed a 40 plus point rise – which is something of an about face given the nasty 1.3%, or 70 point plunge in the ASX 200 yesterday.
The rise was even more surprising given the flow of news overnight about Greece – that the EU was going to soften its stance toward’s Greece’s financial problems (denied), while Russia ruled out any financial aid to Greece.
But a meeting of eurozone finance ministers only lasted 90 minutes in Luxembourg and broke up without agreement – and hours later an emergency head of state meeting was called for Brussels on Monday night to discuss the stand off with Greece.
What that meeting will do is unclear, but rather than sending markets higher, it was shrugged off.
At the same time reports surfaced of billions of euros in withdrawals from Greek banks by nervous citizens ahead of any possible default or crisis, such as the imposition of capital controls by the Greek Government.
Those banks are already being supported by funding from the European Central Bank, heightening the strains in the Greek economy and the strength of the financial system.
Given all this it was something of a surprise that European stockmarkets rose (though the Greek market hit a new three year low) and the euro again rose, sending the US dollar lower, and the Aussie dollar back above 78 US cents.
In the US the flow of news about the economy increased the belief that the Fed will lift rates later in the year. US markets were up around 1% across the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq.
In fact the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite surprised by hitting a new all time high overnight, topping the last milestone from the dot-com era as it set a record intraday high.
The Nasdaq Composite hit a high of 5,143.316, topping the previous 5,132.52 record which was set on March 10, 2000, according to Reuters.
It also set a record closing high, as did the Russell 2000, while the S&P 500 closed within half a per cent of of its all time high.
