European stocks were firm at the close, providing some upside follow through to Friday's strong gains. This article from Bloomberg has some of the details.

David Fuller's view It is no secret that Europe has been the main focal point for investors' concerns over at least the last two years. With an increasing number of commentators saying that a break-up of the Eurozone was only a matter of time, and perhaps not that much time, politicians knew that they needed to agree on a clear step towards closer fiscal, political and banking union.

So far, the 19th summit concluded last Friday has produced a bullish surprise, although these gains will need to be maintained and extended, to demonstrate more than temporary short-covering. Following a mixed start today, European stock market indices closed near the day's highs.

Over the last two weeks Fullermoney has repeatedly cited the early-June lows for share indices as an important initial support level, basically because there cannot be another correction of consequence from current levels, let alone the bear market predicted by some commentators, without first breaking the last reaction low. Currently, Europe is pulling away from the early-June lows and extending last month's rally.

You can see this from daily charts for these important European indices: Euro Stoxx 50, Euro Stoxx Banks, UKX, DAX, CAC, IBEX, SPMIB, AEX, OMX, KFX (a European leader), OBX, HEX and SMI (another European leader). Following additional gains for these indices and some others around the globe which may be of interest to you, we can say that closes beneath the late-June reaction lows would now be necessary to indicate more than a brief pause before overhead trading is further tested. Technically, the early-June lows remain important, in my opinion, because we cannot have a bigger correction, let alone the bear market feared by some, without breaking beneath them.

(See also the latest of Eoin's European share reviews below.)