Australian stocks are gaining for the first time in six years and further expansions by the local market will largely hinge on overseas factors as research group Lincoln Indicators released a new study showing listed companies that deemed financially healthy surge in the six months leading to December.

According to AAP, Lincoln's Health of the Market report showed that financially sound companies increased by 22 percent in the first half of 2009, which is the first upward movement seen since 2004 as four percent of stocks are given satisfactory ratings.

Lincoln said that improvements were ushered by a lift in the overall market in the mid-part of 2009, where many companies experienced better income results as recovery from the global financial crisis slowly unravelled.

With recovery underway, companies with financial issues improved to 12 percent from 16 percent of total stocks as Lincoln chief executive Elio D'Amato stressed that most of the so-called unhealthy companies were reduced to those engaged in the resource-based industry.

He argued that mining exploration firms that trade on ASX are not necessarily generating any revenues, which "inherently exposed them to higher than acceptable levels of financial risk."

The report, however, issued warning that the rest of 2010 would be hardly favourable for the Australian share market as Lincoln adopted a wary stand on several global factors that could impact the country's economic outlook.

Mr D'Amato aired his deep concerns on the prospect that the sovereign debt issue in Greece would spill over worldwide and hurt investor confidence in the global market, including that of Australia.

He added that the country's over reliance on the economic boom in China could expose many Australian companies once the bubble burst, which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has earlier cited as a not-too-far possibility.

Mr D'Amato told AAP that the bottom line is, while the country may indeed be gaining domestically, "there obviously remain a number of global issues which are still weighing on our domestic bourse."