The dumping of important data on the state of the economy of the United States (US) and several other countries this week prompted a surprise rally for equities at the close last Friday.
It is understood that several excellent corporate earnings reports also boosted investor confidence to buy into equities ahead of this week's monetary policy meeting (FOMC).
The streak at Friday's Wall Street close saw consolidation with the Dow Jones Industrials up 2.59% at 32,861.8 while the S&P 500 climbed 2.46% at 3,901.06 and the Nasdaq Composite added 2.87% at 11,102.45.
Commenting on the state of equities on Friday, Ryan Detrick, a market strategist from the Carson Group, said the record was the best in months.
He further added that it was the 2nd Friday where investors were seen continuing to buy and this suggests that the bear market may be nearing its end.
The situation in Asia saw Japan's Nikkei 225 up 1.32%, Topix down 1%, South Korea's Kospi up 0.59%, Kosdaq up 0.83% while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 1% and the broad MSCI Asia Pacific index of shares outside Japan gained 0.3%.
In the meantime, the main focus of investors this week is of course directed to the FOMC which will witness the implementation of a rate hike by the Federal Reserve (Fed) on November 3.
Here investors expect the US central bank to be less aggressive with its interest rates, where the CME FedWatch gauge shows an 80% chance the Fed will raise rates between 3.75% to 4%.
Also of interest to investors are ISM manufacturing and services survey data, job opening data, ADP and NFP data including unemployment data.
On the other side, there was also the implementation of a rate hike in Australia, New Zealand's unemployment rate and some key data in Britain and Switzerland.
