Thanks Endless. Half-time round-up:Australian shares shrugged...

Thanks Endless.

Half-time round-up:

Australian shares shrugged off negative leads from Wall Street and a mixed open in Asia as Greece's parliament passed tough austerity measures to secure a second bailout.

At lunchtime the ASX 200 was 12 points or 0.3% ahead at 4258 as strength in the banks and miners offset modest losses among industrials, oilers, property trusts and small caps.

Asian markets were mixed and US futures rallied after Greek lawmakers this morning passed unpopular measures demanded by the international community in exchange for debt relief. Dow futures were recently up 35 points or 0.3%. Japan's Nikkei this morning added 0.15% but Shanghai fell 0.78% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.39%.

"There's still a few hurdles to go [with Greece], particularly negotiating the debt write-down and what-not on Wednesday," IG Markets market strategist Stan Shamu told Fairfax. "We're not out of the woods yet when it comes to Greece. It'll probably continue to be the dominant theme for the week."

Last year's rate cuts helped boost home loans in December, according to a report this morning. Approvals increased by 2.3% from November, more than the 2% increase that economists had predicted.

Crude oil futures rallied 22 cents this morning to US$99.27 a barrel. Spot gold was 20 cents softer at US$1,724.80 an ounce. The dollar was buying US$1.071.


No sign of irrational exuberance following the Greek vote. Our market is holding up fairly well considering Shanghai and Hong Kong appear to have the glums about the absence of fresh monetary easing in China. Here, I caught IRN at the low for a couple of points and also got a few AFR on pullback.