Global equities hit 5-month high before Greece, euro firms, gold rises, copper declines

On Monday global shares reached their highest since September and the euro firmed, as investors kept their cautious optimism hoping euro zone finance ministers would reach a deal on Greece's bailout program. 

The meeting of euro zone finance ministers is due to begin at 1400 GMT.

The sentiment also pushed low-risk government bonds yields higher. Benchmark German 10-year yields rose 0.3 basis points to 0.346 percent.

The euro EUR/USD rose 0.3 percent to $1.1413 and gained 0.2 percent to 135.37 yen. The dollar fell 0.2 percent against a basket of major currencies.

The yen rose 0.1 percent to 118.60 to the dollar and sterling, buoyed by recent policymaker comments viewed as hawkish, hit a six-week peak of $1.5440 before retreating.

The MSCI all-country world stocks index (MIWD00000PUS), which has risen in recent days on prospects for a Greek deal and after last week's ceasefire deal for Ukraine, touched its highest since Sept. 22.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 (FTEU3) stocks index was last down 0.1 percent and Germany's DAX (GDAXI), which hit a record high on Friday, was down 0.4 percent.

Athens' volatile (ATG) stocks index fell 4.4 percent, having risen 5.6 percent on Friday.

Greek three-year bond yields rose 170 basis points to 17.44 percent, way below last week's 21.8 percent peak.

U.S. markets closed for Presidents' Day holiday.

"I'm not too worried for now. I don't think that Germany can afford to let Greece leave the euro zone, and the Greeks themselves will have to compromise a little bit. So I think we'll reach a half-way house compromise," said Clairinvest fund manager Ion-Marc Valahu.

Radical leftist Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's government was elected last month on a pledge to scrap the bailout, reverse austerity measures and get rid of supervision by the "troika" of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF.

When speaking on France 2 television, Sapin took a softer line than has been heard from the euro zone in recent weeks, saying that there was "fortunately" some chance of a deal. He appeared to be positioning France to try to broker a compromise.

Commodities

As of commodities, the oil price held on to last week's gains after Kuwait's oil minister said lower levels of supply would support prices in the second half of this year. Brent crude was last up 1.3 percent at $62.33 a barrel. Oil topped $60 a barrel last week for the first time since December as the number of oil rigs in the United States fell.

Gold, often considered a safe haven in times of market worries, climbed before the Greek talks and on dollar weakness.

On the contrary, copper declined. On the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, copper for March delivery shed 1.4 cents, or 0.55%, to trade at $2.591 a pound during European morning hours. Copper is sensitive to the economic growth outlook because of its widespread uses across industries, says Investing.com.