Surprise, surprise! Not really.
Basically nothing came out of the hot discussions on Greek debt when Germany’s finance minister Wolfgang Schauble and the Greek finance minister butted heads yesterday. Tsipras and Varoufakis are back in Athens.
Breaking news:
The US economy added 257K jobs in January, but the unemployment rate went up a bit to 5.7%. Ms. USA (AKA US Dollar ) is flying high.
While fighting over debt and getting nowhere, Mr Varoufakis issued a stark warning to its German paymasters of the rise of Nazism in his country if the Eurozone fails to heed the democratic voice of Greek voters. “No one understands better than the people of this land how a severely depressed economy, combined with a ritual national humiliation and unending hopelessness, can hatch the serpent’s egg within its society.”
Personally I agree with this as we have seen this pattern repeating itself throughout the history.
Mr Schauble, in response said that Greece has to be responsible for its own problems. He did offer his support by way of sending 500 German tax collectors to help the Athens government collect from wealthy Greeks. That is if their money is still in the country. On this note the Greek central bank governor Yannis Stournaras has assured depositors that there is “absolutely no problem, we are under control. It was a calm day today.” However the rose tinted opinions of Mr Stournaras seem a little dubious as he added, “The ECB’s decision can be taken back if there is a deal from the Greek government.”
While this debate was in process anti-austerity riots were taking place in Athens. Thousands of peaceful protesters marched in Syntagma Sq, against the ECB’s decision not to accept Greek bonds as loan collateral. It is certainly a rare show of support when the general public are fighting the corner of their own government against the Eurozone powers. Certainly Mr Varoufakis has won over the hearts and minds of the Greek population, unfortunately he has not done as well with the myriad of Eurozone state leaders as his tour of Europe comes to an end.
As Germany and Mr Schauble makes enemies elsewhere Angela Merkel and French President Hollande are attempting to make friends and repair relationships with Russia. The pair will hold face to face talks with Vlladimir Putin this evening in an attempt to break the diplomatic deadlock over Ukraine. A Senior EU official has suggested the talks are a result of the US considering supplying defensive weapons including anti- tank missiles to Ukraine. A move both Ms Merkel and Mr hollande oppose and for that matter anyone with a modicum of sense.
Would this trigger the oil prices to go back up?
On the data front, to recap no change from the BoE yesterday and US unemployment yesterday broadly speaking unchanged. Today during the London session we had the trade balance out and it was worse than most analysts expected.
Canadian unemployment and the US Non-Farm Payrolls are unfolding as I write this article and Ms. USA is already moving down on a bearish sentiment… Hopefully you can make some pips before going into the weekend 🙂
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