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Caution about Greece ahead of a meeting between its prime minister and Germany's Angela Merkel prompted a nervy start to the week for European markets on Monday.

Shares and currencies in Asia, in contrast, had rallied on easy monetary policy hopes and another tick down in oil prices.

The euro and Europe's main share markets fell in early trading, giving back some of the gains made at the end of last week after the U.S. Federal Reserve eased fears of an aggressive rise in its interest rates.

Attention was focusing back on Greece with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras due to meet Angela Merkel in Berlin later.

As Greece needs to reach agreement with its creditors to secure fresh funds, Athens' plan seems to be to seek mercy from EU leaders. By doing so it is going over the heads of euro zone finance ministers and the European Central Bank and IMF, hoping that they will see the broad political cost of a Greek collapse rather than focus on the nitty gritty of funding and required economic reforms.

That doesn't look like a winning strategy so far however. The message from EU leaders has been clear -- no reforms, no money.

"What we have essentially is a continuation of the Greece cash squeeze where it is a dancing on the edge of a precipice," said Alvin Tan, an FX strategist at Societe Generale in London.

"They are running out of money so it looks like the next 1-2 weeks are going to be pretty important."

The weakness in the euro helped lift the dollar index but there was no convincing rebound from the greenback. Last week saw its biggest fall since 2011 after the Fed issued a warning about the currency's recent strength.

The Fed's interest rates tend to set the marker for global policy and the possibility of an extension to the era of record low interest rates had lifted risk appetite in Asia.

Weaker dollar signs powered Asian currencies higher, with Malaysia's ringgit, the second-worst performing Asian currency this year, marking its best day in seven weeks.

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On a day when Amazon.com AMZN announced that it would be expanding one-hour delivery for certain items into more U.S. metropolitan areas, the company received better news regarding a logistics program that has been viewed by many as a pipe dream.

The Federal Aviation Administration granted the Seattle-based online retailer the ability to legally test its much-discussed Amazon Prime Air delivery drones on Thursday, a small win for the company, which has been tussling with the government for permission ever since CEO Jeff Bezos announced the program in a Dec. 2013 interview with “60 Minutes.” Though it is a move in the right direction for Amazon, the certification is far from the sweeping victory that the company would have liked and still places heavy restrictions on a program that will not be delivering toothpaste and toilet paper to Americans’ doorsteps anytime soon.

The FAA’s certification will require Amazon’s drone operators to have “at least a private pilot’s certificate,” the same document required for a private, non-commercial plane owner to fly a Cessna. Current drone hobbyists have no such license needed to operate their drones, while some companies have recently received case-by-case commercial exemptions that allow them to fly without the same conditions that have been placed on Amazon.

“By insisting Amazon obtain an experimental airworthiness certificate, the FAA is treating drones the same as a Boeing 747 that’s operating for development or testing purposes,” says Brendan Schulman, a lawyer at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel. ”This approach is some progress for Amazon specifically, but it’s still limiting for innovating companies in general.”

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Many Americans don't pay much attention to what Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and "the Fed" do, but that could change very soon.

In June, the Fed could do something it hasn't done since Barack Obama was a U.S. senator: raise interest rates.

Don't hit the snooze button. An interest rate hike will impact everyone who has a home mortgage, car loan, savings account or money in the stock market.

In short, life is about to get better for savers and a little harder for borrowers. Investors could also face tougher times.

"The losers will be borrowers and the winners will be savers," says Ted Peters, CEO of Bluestone Financial Institutions Fund and a former member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

Here's the full run down:

1. Mortgage rates will rise 

As the Fed signals its intention to raise rates, borrowers are rushing to get deals done now. There's been a big rush of mortgage applications in 2015, driven by people refinancing to lock in lower interest rates.

"People thinking of buying a house should act quickly to lock in today's low rates," says Dean Croushore, an economics professor at the University of Richmond and former Philadelphia Fed economist.

An average, 30-year mortgage fetches a 3.8% interest rate now, according to Freddie Mac. That's down from a year ago when rates were closer to 4.3%. The Fed cut rates to historic lows in 2008 in part to reboot the housing market, which collapsed when the housing bubble popped.

When the Fed likely raises rates this year, it will push mortgage rates and auto loans up, experts say. That said, it's uncertain if that will cause home or car buying to slow down.

2. Savers succeed 

Ever since the financial crisis, folks who put their money in the bank have gained next to nothing. With interest rates so low, people who played it safe have been getting the short end of the stick.

That will change for the better for people with savings accounts. Once the Fed raises interest rates, savers will gain more interest on the money they deposit at their bank.

The average interest rate on a savings account is a mere 0.44% right now, according to Bankrate.

Savers can smile all the way to the bank knowing the job market is looking good too.

3. Jobs, jobs, jobs 

A big reason the Fed is planning to raise interest rates is because the U.S. economy is improving, especially the job market. Unemployment is down to its lowest level since 2008, and the U.S. has added millions of jobs in the past year.

"The labor market is improving," Yellen said Wednesday. "Some of the headwinds that have been holding the economy back are beginning to recede."

A rate hike would be Yellen's two thumbs up that the economy is healthy.

The only concern is that a rate hike could hurt future wage growth. Many Americans haven't sensed the success of the economy's recovery because wage growth remains flat. The Fed wants to see about 3.5% wage growth, but it was only 2% in February.

However, Yellen made clear that wage growth isn't a requirement to raise interest rates. Wages are usually the last measure of the economy's health to move in the right direction.

"We may not see wage growth pick up," Yellen said. "I wouldn't say that is a precondition to raising rates."

4. Rocky ride for stocks 

The stock market rallied big on Wednesday after the Fed released its official statement.

Don't take that one day as a preview for the rest of the year though. Investors were largely reacting to language in the Fed statement suggesting that the central bank won't raise rates in April and will likely raise rates only a bit in June or later.

Any rate hike will almost certainly increase volatility. Stocks are already considered expensive and many on Wall Street fear markets are overdue for a correction (when they drop 10% or more), which hasn't happened since 2011.

"Overall measures of equity valuations are on the high side but not outside of historical ranges," Yellen reiterated Wednesday.

A Fed rate hike could make stocks less attractive to investors. It would also raise interest rates on U.S. bonds, which are considered safer investments.

Spring is coming, but a Fed rate hike could set the sun -- at least for a while -- on the phenomenal gains investors have experienced in recent years.

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Investors were anxious as the Federal Open Market Committee kicked off a two-day policy meeting, to be followed by a statement from Fed Chair Janet Yellen on Wednesday afternoon.

Most economists expect the Fed to remove a pledge to be “patient’’ about raising interest rates from its statement. Market strategists said with or without a change in the language, the Fed may still be on track to raise rates as early as June.

“People are waiting for the Fed to provide some degree of clarity,’’ said Michael O'Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading in Greenwich, Connecticut.

In addition to anxiety about the Fed statement, options expiration on Friday may have contributed to the day’s volatility, said Bruce Zaro, chief technical strategist, Bolton Global Asset Management in Boston.

While higher rates would be a sign of strength in the US economy, some investors question whether the economy is strong enough to handle increased borrowing costs.

Make sure to place your trades before today’s statement. A lot of money can be made today.

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Oil prices started the week with another fall, pulled lower by the prospect of Iranian oil flooding an already oversupplied global market.

U.S. and Iranian negotiators are hoping to seal a tentative political agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program before an end-of-March deadline. This could pave the way for increased Iranian oil exports and would be bearish for prices, which are again under pressure after several weeks of relative stability.

“What happens with Iran is important because of the direct impact on oil supply,” said David Hufton of brokerage PVM.

Talks between the U.S. and Iran are set to resume on Monday, though Western diplomats say serious negotiations over substance would still be needed in the months ahead before any international sanctions on Iran can be lifted.

Barclays analysts said that the perception that sanctions relief will lead to more oil on the market could pave the way for crude’s next move. “This supports our bearish view, and we see little likelihood of a bullish market reaction to developments in this space,” they wrote in a report.

However, sanctions won’t be removed in one fell swoop, the bank cautioned.

“Even in a best-case scenario on sanctions relief, a sea change in Iranian oil exports is unlikely until after June,” Barclays says.

On Friday, the International Energy Agency, an influential energy watchdog, warned the oil market remained fragile amid persistently high U.S. production and soaring oil inventories.

Though the number of U.S. oil drilling rigs—a proxy of production—has been falling in recent months, the rate of the decline has slowed, dropping by 56 to 866 last week, according to Baker Hughes Inc. That suggests U.S. oil producers are slowing the rate at which they cut production capacity, although the impact may take several months to show in the actual output.

“Naturally, lower rig count would suggest lower crude production; however, with new-well production on the rise, it is enough to taper off reductions in crude production,” Daniel Ang, investment analyst at Phillip Futures wrote in a report.

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Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is investing $200 million in photo-messaging app Snapchat, a source familiar with the deal said, striking its latest Silicon Valley deal as the Chinese ecommerce company builds up mobile services.

The investment values the company at around $15 billion, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the situation as saying. This places the four-year-old company into the top ranks of privately held startups.

Snapchat's latest valuation is a massive increase for a company that Facebook offered to buy in late 2013 for $3 billion.

Los Angeles-based Snapchat, which allows its more than 100 million users to send messages that disappear in seconds, had sought capital to extend its core service. In January, it began carrying videos and articles from mainstream media outlets such as CNN and ESPN, bringing Snapchat into closer competition with Facebook and Twitter.

It is unclear what value the startup would bring to Alibaba, which handles more online commerce than Amazon.com and eBay combined. The Chinese company, which has been coping with a steady increase in shopping via smartphones and tablets, has made it a priority to develop mobile services.

Alibaba's investment spree comes also as the company plans a major move to win U.S. business this year, by offering American retailers new ways to sell to China's vast and growing middle class.

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Shake Shack Inc., the burger chain founded by restaurateur Danny Meyer, plunged as much as 8.5 percent in late trading after its inaugural earnings report failed to live up to investors’ lofty expectations.

The stock, which had more than doubled since its January initial public offering, dropped as low as $42.90 in after-market trading on Wednesday. While fourth-quarter revenue topped analysts’ estimates, the company predicted that same-store sales would grow in the low-single digits. That may not have been enough to satisfy shareholders after the stock’s surge, said Sharon Zackfia, analyst at William Blair & Co. in Chicago.

“It had a really strong run,” she said.        

The company, which started as a hot-dog kiosk in New York’s Madison Square Park, is known for upscale fast food, including its signature burgers made with beef from Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors. Though Shake Shack currently has just 66 locations, it’s been plotting a global expansion and touting itself as a new type of cuisine: fine casual.

That’s fueled optimism that the company can build a relatively small chain into a burger empire. Shake Shack’s revenue rose about 52 percent to $34.8 million in the fourth quarter. Sales at company-owned locations open at least two years, which includes 13 restaurants, rose 7.2 percent.

That rate isn’t sustainable in the long run, which is reflected in the company’s forecast, Chief Executive Officer Randy Garutti said on a conference call.

“We’re going to continue to be conservative,” he said.

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More than 40 million Americans are in debt thanks to their education, and most of their loans come from Uncle Sam. So President Barack Obama is aiming to clamp down on the private companies that service federal student debt with a presidential memorandum he will issue on Tuesday.

Obama’s policy tweaks, to be unveiled during a speech at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, don’t require new legislation from Congress — a plus as far as the White House is concerned. But they won’t be earth-shattering for student-borrowers, either. Instead, the new steps seek to tilt the student lending process more toward the borrowers, with a particular focus on graduates struggling to make their monthly payments.

Obama’s memorandum targets third parties like Sallie Mae/Navient that contract with the government to collect on federal student debt. Those companies will be required to better inform borrowers about their repayment options and notify them when they are delinquent on payments.

The president is also instructing the government to create a website where students can see all their federal loans in one place — a major problem for students with multiple loans, as well as those whose loans have been sold by one lender to another. He’s also asking for a single website where borrowers can file complaints about loan servicers, in an apparent recognition that customer service for student borrowers has been a major problem in the past.

Although Obama has long lamented the burden placed on young Americans and the broader economy by student debt and college affordability, he’s run into obstacles that have limited his efforts to improve the situation.

Using his executive authority, Obama expanded a federal loan repayment plan to allow more low-income Americans to cap their monthly payments at an affordable percentage of their income. But when Obama this year proposed to eliminate the so-called “529” college savings plan to make way for education tax benefits, opposition was so strong he had to jettison the idea. And the president’s State of the Union pitch this year for two years of free community college for every eligible American has gained little traction in the Republican-controlled Congress.

Obama will also direct federal agencies like the Education Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to determine whether more government rules are needed to keep student loan servicers in line. His memo also requires those companies to apply early payments from borrowers to loans with the highest interest rates, which could help students pay off their debt sooner.

Obama was to detail his student loan priorities during a trip Tuesday to Georgia, where the president will also headline a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee. Roughly 25 donors paid up to $33,400 to attend the private event at an Atlanta hotel.

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