The international bulls maintained their momentum last night, lighting up the leaderboard with green ink.

In Europe the gains were very strong, with the FTSE (+2.4%), CAC (+3.1%) and DAX (+2.5%) all surging higher.

The gains came amidst German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet approval of a modified plan for the eurozone rescue fund, which strengthens the flexibility of the fund.

Stateside the gains weren't as pronounced, with the Dow adding 54 points (+0.5%) to settle at 11614, whilst the S&P also added 0.5% and the Nasdaq gained 0.1%.

The move higher last night gave the S&P500 its best eight-day gain since 2009, whilst also erasing the Dow's year-to-date loss that grew to 7.4% only three weeks ago.

The Swiss franc rose against all of its 16 major peers overnight, after the Swiss National Bank refrained from announcing new steps to curb its gains.

The US dollar gave up early gains against the euro, after stronger-than-expected economic data saw traders reduce bets that the Fed will move to stimulate growth.

Crude oil was little changed overnight, slipping just nine cents to settle at US$88.81 a barrel. The move lower capped the biggest monthly drop since May, with prices shedding 7.2% in August, the third decline in four months.

Gold was also little changed, adding just $1.90 (+0.1%) to settle at US$1831.70 an ounce. Bullion recorded its biggest monthly gain since November 2009 in August, adding approximately 12%.

In company news, CSR expects underlying earnings for its first half to fall within the range of $90 million to $100 million.

Today's session will being us important data in the form of private capital expenditure and retail sales, both due out at 11:30am, AEST.