A breather for global markets at the end of a week when the Greek bailout edged towards finalisation, European leaders said nice things to each other about the economy and oil prices continued to worry investors.

The US dollar drifted and edged higher, especially against the yen where the gains are approaching 10% in the past month.

US markets closed lower on Friday, with the Dow down for the third weekly loss in nine this year, but the Standard & Poor's 500 rose for the week, as did Nasdaq, which is still the key indicator of what's driving the current US rebound: technology stocks such as Apple.

Friday's fall capped a week where the major benchmarks reached multi-year highs, and then retreated.

The Dow fell 2.73 points, or 0.02%, to 12,977.57, down a fraction from the previous Friday (0.05%).

The S&P 500 shed 4.46 points, or 0.3%, to 1,369.63, but finished up 0.3% and the Nasdaq fell 12.78 points, or 0.4%, to 2,976.19, a gain of 0.4% for the five days.

Last week, the Dow average closed above 13,000 for the first time since 2008, and the Nasdaq Composite crossed 3,000 for the first since late 2000.

By Friday the indexes had retreated back under those levels.

The S&P 500 ended February with its best two-month start to the year since 1987.

The past week also saw reasonably good news on the economy: a small rise in personal income and consumer spending, solid manufacturing survey and surprisingly strong car sales for February which topped an annual rate of more than 15 million, much higher than any forecast.

US car sales are now running at annual rate not seen since before the recession in 2008.

Same-store sales for 18 of America's biggest retailers rose 6.4% last month, another surprise for analysts.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index rose 0.1% on Friday to 267.21 at the close of trading. The index added 0.9% last week.

National indexes rose in 15 of the 18 major western European markets.

France's CAC 40 added less than 0.1%. Germany's DAX eased 0.3% and the UK's FTSE 100 also fell 0.3%.

The Stoxx 600 climbed 3.9% last month and is up 8.2% from the beginning of the year.

In Asia, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed 0.2% last week to 128.22, the 11th consecutive weekly rise.

The Shanghai market rose 1.4% on Friday to end the week at the highest in 12 weeks.

The index added 0.9% last week and has had seven weeks of gains in the longest winning streak since July 2009.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 0.9% and the Nikkei in Tokyo rose a solid 1.3%.

In Australia, Australian shares could be in for a lower start on Monday after the weak end in the US, with the Share Price Index future contract off around 16 points at 4262 on the weekend.

On Friday the ASX200 index was up 17.6 points, or 0.4%, at 4,273.1 points, while the All Ordinaries index added 18.1 points, or 0.4%, to 4,364.1 points.

The ASX 200 lost 0.8% last week, to wipe out the gains of February.

Copyright Australasian Investment Review.
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