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A tech boost has helped tee global shares up for a third straight week of gains, despite growing inflation concerns, while the US dollar dipped and oil prices bounced off their lows.

MSCI's broadest gauge of global shares was up 0.1 per cent, 1.4 per cent higher on the week and just 0.8 per cent off its all-time high.

Europe's top markets were all up, with the biggest, Britain's FTSE 100, up 0.4 per cent.

That followed gains in Asia, where Japan's Nikkei advanced 0.3 per cent, led by the technology sector, and equity bulls were also comforted by news heavily indebted Chinese property firm Evergrande had made a surprise interest payment, averting a default for now.

The risk-on tone came despite growing investor concern persistent inflation could force central bankers to tighten monetary policy at a point where global economic growth remains fragile.

Data on Friday showed euro zone inflation expectations are at their highest in years, amid a rash of warnings from companies including Nestle, ABB and Unilever .

The German 10-year break-even inflation rate, which represents the difference in yield between a nominal bond and its inflation-indexed counterpart, rose to around 1.81 per cent, its highest since April 2013.

Rising prices crimped euro zone growth in October and could set the scene for a tough meeting of the European Central Bank next week, Neil Birrell, chief investment officer at asset manager Premier Miton, said.

"The ECB meets next week, it has plenty to discuss, a faltering economy and rising inflation; it is under pressure to tackle the inflation spike but needs to tread carefully with any change in policy," he said.

Despite concern inflation pressures could push governments to tighten monetary policy too quickly, Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, said in a note to clients that equities could still move higher.

"With current issues still appearing more temporary than structural, we believe equity markets will continue to move higher," Haefele said.

"Indeed, small increases in inflation expectations can be positive for markets if it helps to banish fears of deflation. Furthermore, by our assessment, global growth remains strong, supply chain challenges should recede into 2022, and corporate earnings should continue to grow."

US stock futures point to a flat open on Wall Street, after the cash index posted a record closing high overnight, led by surging tech shares.

Next week, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Google-owner Alphabet all report, with bulls hoping they can follow forecast-beating earnings this week from Netflix.

Meanwhile, yields on benchmark 10-year Treasury notes were at 1.6908 per cent, easing back from a five-month high of 1.7050 per cent reached overnight.

The US dollar index, which gauges the greenback against six major rivals, was down 0.1 per cent to 93.634, despite initially bouncing off recent lows after US jobless claims fell to a 19-month low, pointing to a tighter labour market.

The Federal Reserve has signalled it could start to taper stimulus as soon as next month, with rate hikes to follow late next year. Full employment is among the Fed's stated requirements for rates lift-off.

Across commodities, oil prices bounced off their overnight lows, up 0.3 per cent, with Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate just about in the black for the week and earlier threatening to break a multi-week winning run.

Gold was up 0.4 per cent on the back of the weaker US dollar, on course for its second week of gains.

© RAW 2021

Victoria is scrapping quarantine for fully vaccinated travellers arriving from overseas, bringing the state into line with NSW.

Premier Daniel Andrews on Friday confirmed international arrivals will no longer need to quarantine either at home or in hotels if they are fully vaccinated and test negative to COVID-19 in the 72 hours before their flight and then 24 hours after arrival.

There will also no longer be a cap on fully vaccinated returning Australians wishing to enter Victoria.

The changes will come into effect on November 1, the same day as NSW.

"No hotel quarantine, no iso - you'll be able to go about your business," Mr Andrews told reporters.

"And the reason for that is that at 80 per cent, 90 per cent (fully vaccinated) - which is where we're going to get to - we are as protected as we can be."

International arrivals will need to demonstrate their vaccination status with a vaccine approved or recognised by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, which includes AstraZeneca, Moderna and Pfizer, as well as others used overseas such as Johnson & Johnson and Sinovac

Children aged under 12 arriving with fully vaccinated parents, and people with a valid medical exemption will also not be required to quarantine.

Unvaccinated people and international arrivals who do not meet the new entry criteria will be capped at 250 per week and will need to quarantine at a hotel for 14 days.

The cabin-style quarantine facility at Mickleham will be used for the same purpose when it opens in January 2021, with the hotel quarantine program reduced to "just a handful of hotels".

The Victoria Tourism Industry Council said the announcement was a "game-changer" for the tourism industry and Australians stranded overseas.

"Victoria has taken a big, bold step today in announcing to the world that we're opening our state to international visitors," CEO Felicia Mariani said in a statement.

"This move will super-charge the recovery of our sector, giving us an edge in the competition for inbound arrivals."

She said pre-pandemic 40 per cent of visitor-spend in Melbourne was derived from overseas travellers, with each daily international service flying into the city worth $100-$130 million to the Victorian economy.

Mr Andrews said he had been in discussions with Qantas to ensure the airline would bring forward the restart of a range of international flights to Melbourne, as it has in NSW.

"I'm pretty sure they'll have some exciting announcements to make about Melbourne too," he said.

Singapore Airlines announced it will open sales on Friday night for 14 weekly flights between Singapore and Melbourne to support the return of more Australians

"We look forward to reconnecting families and loved ones over the coming weeks and months ahead, and continuing to support all levels of government in their efforts to reopen Australia's borders in a safe, scalable and sustainable way," their regional vice president Louis Arul said in a statement.

© AAP 2021

A woman spent months planning the murder of her partner and made two attempts while planting a trail to make it appear he killed himself, a NSW court has been told.

Natasha Beth Darcy sedated and gassed her grazier partner Mathew Dunbar who died in bed on his Pandora property in the Northern Tablelands town of Walcha on August 2, 2017.

Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield told her sentence hearing on Friday in the NSW Supreme Court that she should be jailed for "life" given Darcy had entirely exploited and manipulated the relationship for financial gain.

Her "determined ugly persistence and planning" was shown in her obsessive internet searches on various methods of killing a person, which could be traced back to February, he said.

These internet queries began with spider venom, poisonous mushrooms, and "toxic wild plants that look like food", and progressed to gas bottles, various sedatives and detailed videos outlining methods.

Articles headlined "science of getting away with murder" and "can police see past web search history", were also looked up and deleted, but later recovered by police.

She left a "false trail' belying his mental ill-health, and made "two dry runs," in either practised or real attempts at his life, Mr Hatfield said.

In June Mr Dunbar was seen by police to be slurring his words, unsteady on his feet, with a very dry mouth and extremely pale, consistent with a drug overdose by Darcy, Mr Hatfield said.

She also sent a fake text message from his phone to her's saying "I am sorry beautiful lady for everything I put you through you deserve better than this."

Then in July after a series of internet searches on injecting muscles, and specifically the calf muscle, Mr Dunbar sustained a calf injury that potentially required surgery.

Defence lawyer Janet Manuell SC argued while these events were suspicious, they could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Justice Julia Lonergan noted there was a disturbing element to the idea of Darcy sitting down to lunch with the man she lived with while "watching videos on how to complete (his) execution".

A victim impact statement by Mr Dunbar's mother described how her kind-hearted son had hoped to turn Darcy's life around.

"Mathew knew she had troubles and hoped to change her," she said.

"He did not deserve this ... I miss him so much, he was so loving and caring, you would not find another being like him.

"Mathew was my only child and now I am on my own, I have lost my rock and my life won't be the same again."

An expert report tendered to the court found Darcy had a complex personality structure with anxiety disorder.

Ms Manuell said she could potentially be seen to have an obsessive quality too, given the striking amount of murderous internet searches she made.

"It's very hard to explain why somebody would make so many searches, accepting that Ms Darcy had settled on a particular course of action," she said.

Darcy's risk to future partners was also aired following past attempts on estranged husband, paramedic Colin Crossman.

In 2009, she hit him on the head with a hammer as he slept and days later sedated him and burnt down their house as he slept.

Darcy met Mr Dunbar on a dating website in 2014, but the Crown argues it didn't take long for her to start pushing for a change to his will so she would inherit his $3.5 million property.

Darcy is due to be sentenced on December 3.

© AAP 2021