Global investors have shrugged off the turmoil on the Chinese stock market.
The US and European markets have risen today despite the Shanghai Composite losing more ground.
The Chinese index fell 1.7 percent a day after slumping 8.5 percent.
It was a volatile session that saw the Shanghai Composite lose 5 percent at one point. But buying of state-owned companies helped the market regain some of the lost ground.
The recovery late in the trading session came in time for the opening of the trading session in Europe.
Global investors were also focusing on their own markets, with a range of companies announcing profit updates.
Investors probably also reflected on the fact the Chinese market is mostly owned by individual Chinese investors, with foreign funds having relatively little exposure.
For example, New Zealand's Super Fund has zero ownership of stocks listed on the mainland Chinese exchanges.
Germany's DAX and France's CAC 40 both gained 1 percent. The FTSE in London rose 0.7 percent, after a report showing the UK economy grew 0.7 percent in the June quarter.
Wall Street broke a week long losing streak.
The Dow Jones Industrial rose 1 percent to 17630. The S&P500 was up 1.24 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdfaq gained almost 1 percent.
Investors are increasingly focused on this week's meeting of the Federal Reserve. The focus will be on any clues the Fed offers about a possible rate hike later in the year.
Gold normally benefits from uncertainty. Yet the concerns about the Chinese stock market have not helped lift gold prices. In fact the slump in Chinese stocks seems to have made things worse.
Gold is trading at US$1095 this morning, below the psychologically important US$1100 mark.
The precious metal peaked at US$1921 in September 2011 and has now fallen around forty percent in value.
Gold is traditionally considered a 'safe haven' investment that people buy in times of uncertainty. But in recent years its rice has fallen as the global economy has improved.
The June quarter saw some Chinese investors sell their gold to buy stocks. That move has not worked too well, with the Chinese market plunging 30 percent.
That has resulted in some Chinese investors having to sell their remaining gold to cover losses they've suffered investing in stocks.
Here is my chat with Paul Henry about gold.
One of the world's biggest oil companies, BP, has announced a loss of US$6.3 billion dollars, after setting aside $7.5 billion to cover further costs from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.
The company expects oil prices to remain low at least until next year.
Oil prices are 50 percent below where they were last year. Lower prices hurt profits and also slow the exploration of new areas.
West Texas crude prices rose 1.24 percent to US$47.98 a barrel.
Twitter has announced a better than expected earnings result.
Its earnings were 7 cents per share on US$502 million in revenue, compared to analysts' estimates of 4 cents.
Last month the company announced that Dick Costolo would step down as its Chief Executive and that co-founder Jack Dorsey would be interim chief.
Twitter is looking for a full-time CEO.
The New Zealand dollar is trading at 66.83 cents this morning, up 1.2 percent from yesterday. It was 91.25 Australian cents at 8am.
The kiwi is 42.83 pence and 60.46 euro.
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