VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Whisper it, but the next challenge for financial markets and policymakers may not be deflation, but the remarkable surge in oil prices from the six-year low touched in January.

"We're going bust." "No, you're not." "You're strangling us." "No we're not." "You owe us for World War Two." "We gave already."

Greece's Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that if Greece were to leave the euro zone, there would be an inevitable contagion effect.

The U.S. dollar rebounded against the euro on Wednesday after the European Central Bank reiterated its dovish stance on monetary policy, though weaker-than-expected U.S. economic data limited the dollar's advance.

European shares hit a 14-year high on Wednesday before a meeting at which the European Central Bank is expected to affirm its loose policy stance, as weak data from China raised prospects of monetary easing there too.

Investors will cast a wary eye on the latest gauges of the United States' economic health this week, while troubled Europe shows early signs of turning the corner.

The dollar fell further on Monday on views a Federal Reserve interest rate hike will come later rather than sooner, and the decline helped boost oil prices.

The head of the euro zone finance ministers responded positively to Greece's request for an immediate start to technical talks with international creditors to conclude the country's current bailout program, a Greek government official said on Saturday.

Greece sent its euro zone partners an augmented list of proposed reforms on Friday but EU officials said several more steps were required before any release of aid funds to a country that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras says has a noose around its neck.

Greek funding and quantitative easing in Europe, an expected rate cut in Australia and the buoyant U.S. labor market are set to be the focus of an economic week dominated by a host of central bank meetings.

Bank lending in the euro zone fell slightly in January but at a slower pace than a month earlier, suggesting the economy may be turning a corner as consumer morale picks up in the bloc's largest economies.

Germany's Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in a radio interview on Monday that he was not very optimistic that Greece and its euro zone partners would reach a debt agreement at a meeting in Brussels later in the day.

Greece said on Sunday it was confident of reaching agreement in negotiations with its euro zone partners but reiterated it would not accept harsh austerity strings in any debt pact.

Greece's new leftist government and its international creditors failed to agree on a way forward on the country's unpopular bailout and will try again on Monday, with time running out for a financing deal.

Greek borrowing costs leapt and bank shares were hit hard on Thursday after the European Central Bank abruptly pulled the plug on its funding for the country's financial sector in what Athens labelled an act of coercion.