As for the euro zone, it is still struggling to keep Greece within its fold for fear of suggesting the currency project may not be as permanent as advertised. Growth is ticking up, but expected at only 1.5 percent this year.

The ECB's Draghi was relatively calm about the state of the bloc's economy at his last news conference but only talked about interest rate hikes over the coming "years". He also went out of his way to say:

"If any factors were to lead to an unwarranted tightening of monetary policy, or if the outlook for price stability were to materially change, the Governing Council will respond...."

The message underlying all this is that the United States and Britain may just be getting their heads above water but big risks remain and there is not a lot overly positive going on elsewhere in the world.

The coming week will shed some light on the state of the global economy. Preliminary purchasing manager indexes for some large economies - a reasonable proxy for growth - are due out on Friday.