Market may open higher on US lead

THE Australian share market is expected to open higher today after markets in the United States rose. On Wall Street on Friday, stocks closed higher despite a meeting of eurozone finance ministers that dashed hopes for firm action on Europe's debt crisis. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 75.91 points, or 0.66 per cent, to 11,509.10 points. The broader S&P 500 index lifted 6.9 points, or 0.57 per cent, to 1,216.01 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index gained 15.24 points, or 0.58 per cent, at 2,622.31 points. Eurozone finance ministers meeting in Poland have delayed until October a decision on whether to hand over the next tranche of an agreed emergency loan package to Greece to prevent a disastrous government default. CommSec chief economist Craig James said the Australian market should get off to a pretty good start today even though the futures market was pointing towards a gain of only eight points. Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar. End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar. "We did have some more good recovery rallies (on markets) in the US and Europe,'' Mr James told AAP. "And to a large extent, the Australian market has been lagging some of the other markets of the world, which is unusual given the fact that the problems are very much centred in Europe and the United States and our economy has been holding up pretty well. "So, I would suggest the futures quote is under-estimating our potential today. We could be rising 20 to 25 points.'' Mr James said investors were still likely to be cautious ahead of a meeting this week of the US Federal Reserve, which will consider how much stimulus should be applied to boost the sputtering US economy. "That has implications for the US dollar and, therefore, the Australian dollar, and it has implications for global growth, so there's a fair bit riding on it,'' he said On Friday, on the Australian market, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index rose 77.7 points, or 1.90 per cent, to 4,149.4, while the broader All Ordinaries added 76.7 points, or 1.84 per cent, to 4,229.9. On the company front this week, retailer Premier Investments reports its full year results on Monday, and retailer David Jones releases its full year results on Wednesday. On the economic front, investors are likely to focus on the US Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting on Wednesday. In Australia, the Australian Bureau of Statistics releases data on merchandise imports on Tuesday, and the the Reserve Bank of Australia releases the minutes of its September board meeting.