The Australian stockmarket will start blind this morning with investors uncertain about what the no vote in the Greek referendum means, and rising fears about the slide in Chinese markets and the potential damage both could cause.

More major news releases, data and other events that could shake markets and investor sentiment around the world.

China is getting desperate in its battle to halt the rout on its stockmarkets, stepping up the pace of moves over the weekend to try and hold the line when trading resumes later today.

A weak finish for US markets overnight (ahead of the long weekend for Independence Day tomorrow) will mean a weak start in markets in Australia and Asia.

US oil prices have ended the holiday shortened with losses as US producers added to the number of rigs looking for oil and gas – the first increase in rig use in 30 weeks.

China stocks opened Friday trading lower with the main Shanghai market down 3% after a day of sharp losses on Thursday as investors ignored attempts by the government to stop the rot.

Global markets shook off their fears about Greece and rebounded yesterday and overnight – except for one – China.

The first major economic report for May has produced a very mixed report for building approvals – with a sharp fall in private sector homes, more than offset by a sharp rise in approvals for apartments, townhouses and units.

The 8am today deadline for Greece to repay a 1.55 billion euro repayment to the IMF passed without any news about whether the payment had actually been made. No one expects Greece to make the payment, but there’s confusion as to what happens next.

China saved – for now?

A miserable month, quarter and financial year for the Australian stockmarket.

Mortgage lending to property investors continued to exceed the 10% annual growth speed limit imposed by banking regulators in May, according to the latest private credit data from the Reserve Bank.

Sharemarkets fell around the world overnight, as expected, as Greece edged towards the cliff of default on a 1.6 billion euro repayment due tonight.

The plunging Chinese stockmarkets, which have wiped out an estimated $US2 trillion in value in the past fortnight have forced China’s central bank cut interest rates and the requirement reserve ratio in an effort to soften the blow of the falls and try and direct more money to business.

The crisis involving Greece’s continued membership of the eurozone deepened at the weekend.

A big start of month week for global economies. There’s Greece, the usual start of month data flow in Australia and other economies, culminating in the US jobs report for June, not to mention the continuing sell-off in China.

Greece was put off to the weekend (better that way so as to limit any damage to markets?) – or to put it another way, instead of kicking the Greek can down the road to later this year or in 2016, it had been nudged forward a whole 36 hours or so.

As we go into a weekend that will be dominated by the last minute talks on Greece’s survival, China’s markets have given us another reminder about why they are more important to us in Australia that what is happening 12,000 kilometres away.

All those nice words about a possible Greek deal blew up overnight, sending markets in Europe lower after an early 1% rise, and dropping Wall Street by 1% on the Dow and 0.7% for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq.

China’s stocks swung wildly between gains and losses on Tuesday after their biggest weekly drop since the global financial crisis.

Optimists had their way on global markets overnight so far as Greece is concerned. Yes Greece presented new proposals to the EU and other creditors, but they came late, and the wrong documents were at first sent.