Australia

The local sharemarket is expected to open flat after Wall Street managed only small gains on Friday, a day marked by Donald Trump's tough talk, but lack of action, on high drug prices.
On Monday morning, the Australian share price futures index was up four points, or 0.07 per cent, at 6100 points. At 8am (AEST), the dollar was worth US75.45, from US75.38c on Friday.
The market on Friday softened in late trade to finish the day in the red. The benchmark S&P/ASX200 closed down 2.5 points, or 0.04 per cent, at 6116.2 points, while the broader All Ordinaries index lost 0.5 points, or 0.01 per cent, at 6216.4 points.
Out today: CoreLogic weekly capital city house prices report, and RBA credit and debit card lending for March. 

Asia

Asian shares rallied on Friday as investors' appetite for riskier assets got a boost from soft US inflation, which helped alleviate worries of faster rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.
Markets were also cheered by a further easing in tensions on the Korean Peninsula, after US President Trump said he would meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12 for talks on its nuclear weapons programme.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.7 percent to near three-week highs with broad-based gains across all sectors. Japan's Nikkei climbed 1.2 per cent.

Europe

Yet another M&A deal stole the spotlight in British stocks trading on Friday as a $3.98 billion bid sent Zoopla owner ZPG surging 30 per cent, while the FTSE 100 inched up, scoring its longest winning streak in nearly 13 years.
The FTSE 100 achieved its seventh straight week of gains, its longest winning streak since June 2015, as investors began to warm to UK equities once again.
On the day, the FTSE rose 0.3 per cent while the FTSE 250 gained 0.4 per cent.
In Germany the DAX 30 index was down 0.17 per cent, and in France the CAC 40 fell 0.07 per cent.
ZPG, the owner of property websites Zoopla and PrimeLocation, surged 30.6 per cent to a record high, after US private equity firm Silver Lake Management offered 490 pence per share for the company, valuing it at £2.2bn pounds ($3.98bn).
It marked the latest in a string of overseas acquisitions targeting British companies, especially in the mid and small-cap space. Zoopla rival Rightmove climbed 3.8 percent and Auto Trader gained 2.5 per cent as the deal improved sentiment across the classifieds sector.

North America

Wall Street's S&P 500 rose on Friday, helped by healthcare stocks after President Trump blasted high drug prices but avoided taking aggressive measures to cut them.
Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer each rose over 1 per cent while Merck & Co jumped 2.8 per cent after Trump in a speech said foreign governments "extort" unreasonably low prices from US drugmakers. His healthcare deputies released a series of proposals to address high drug costs.
The tech sector slipped 0.32 per cent, with Apple dropping 0.38 per cent after a nine-day winning streak that saw the iPhone maker edge closer to $US1 trillion in market capitalisation.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose, 91.64 points, or 0.37 per cent, to end at 24,831.17 points, while the S&P 500 gained, 4.65 points, or 0.17 per cent, to 2727.72, its highest close since mid-March. The Nasdaq Composite slipped, 2.09 points, 0.03 per cent, to 7402.88.

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Lex Hall is a Morningstar content editor, based in Sydney.

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