Equity markets forged higher on Monday with Wall Street looking set for gains as investors bet on a positive corporate earnings season in both the United States and Europe.
The dollar was weaker against major currencies, although it did gain against the yen. Gold also rose as the dollar fell, but remained off its record highs hit last week.
European shares climbed after Philips Electronics offered a better-than-forecast earnings report, setting up hopes for the earnings season in general.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index of top shares was up 1 percent.
"There is a bit more enthusiasm in the market, based on the view that corporate figures are going to be more positive," said Justin Urquhart Stewart, director at Seven Investment Management.
The gains followed Friday's 2009 closing high for the Dow Jones industrial average, which was also based on growing optimism about the earnings season.
U.S. aluminium giant Alcoa got the U.S. third-quarter earnings season off to a good start last week but this week will bring banks into focus.
JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Bank of America all report over the nest five days.
Japan's stock market was closed on Monday for a holiday.
Emerging market stocks as measured by MSCI were up slightly.
There is a high reverse correlation at the moment between emerging market stocks and the U.S. dollar, with the former rising when the latter is weak and vice versa.
DOLLAR STRONGER
The dollar was weaker against major currencies, but hit a two-week high against Japan's yen.
The dollar had been under heavy selling pressure on the prospect that U.S. interest rates could remain low for a while and it hit its weakest level in eight months against the yen last week and a 14-month low against a basket of six currencies.
The dollar was up 0.4 percent from late Friday's levels to 90.15 yen, having earlier hit its strongest level since the start of the month.
But the euro gained 0.2 percent to $1.4754, having lost 0.5 percent on Friday.
Bund futures erased earlier losses to be little changed Monday following a rally in UK gilts that followed comments from Moody's about the stable outlook for Britain's triple-A credit rating.
December Bund futures hit a session high of 122.21, up 9 ticks on the day.
