- Jucker cancels Eurogroup meeting on Greece, will hold call instead and meet on Monday
- EU seeking to finalize 325m euros of spending cuts before bailout approval
- New Democracy’s Samaras yet to sign austerity pledge, may sign tomorrow
- ECB’s Weidmann: Central banks must not participate in debt haircuts
- Schaeuble: Europe now better prepared for a Greek default
- Dutch fin min: No a cent more for Greece after bailout
- Spain may be fined for failing at deficit cuts
- US retail sales ex autos +0.7% vs +0.5% exp
- US business inventories +0.4% vs 0.5% exp, GDP forecasts revised lower
- US and China re-affirm FX policies
- Fed’s Kocherlakota: US to grow 2.5-3.0% in 2012
- Fed’s Plosser: Fed will probably raise rates before late 2014
- S&P 500 declines 0.1% to 1350
- CAD leads, JPY lags
Maybe it was the distraction of Valentine’s Day love in the air but there was an abbundance of stupidity in Europe today. The euro traded to 1.32 midway through European trading after a strong ZEW but poorly-choosen words from Schaeuble and the strange inability of Samaras to sign an austerity pledge after he voted for it sparked fears that Greece may not get its bailout money. Stops were triggered below 1.31 but a late report suggesting that Samaras will sign the commitment led to a late rebound to 1.3120.
USD/JPY was the real story as it flirts with 78.50 and the highest close since August. The BOJ’s fresh QE caught the market off guard. There are sell orders from exporters at 78.50/80 but the market has been going after them fairly agressively.
Marco sellers knocked cable down from 1.5750 to 1.5650 before a late bounce. Bids at 1.5710/15 and 1.5680/90(100 and 21 day MA’s) were knocked as, as was tech support around 1.5655/65 (lows of Jan 30/ and 38.2 retracement of 1.5230-1.5930 before the rebound.
