- UK CBI distributive trades index falls to +18 in May from +21 in April; better than expected
- Greek 5-year CDS swaps rise to a record 1492 bp, implying a 71% chance of default over the life of the contract: BBG
- US new homes sales rise 7.3% in April
- Richmond Fed index slides to -6 in May from +10 in April
- Dutch Finance minister: Portugal must raise retirement age
- ECB’s Bini-Smaghi: Greece won’t get next tranche of IMF-EU loan if it doesn’t make reforms; restructuring would collapse system
- Japan wants open process to choose IMF chief; No automatic European claim
- S&P 500 closes down 0.1% at 1316
- US 10 year note falls 1.5 bp at 3.11%
- Oil climbs $1.75 to $99.50 after Goldman buy recommendation; gold rises $9 to $1525
The market is getting a bit thick-skinned in regard to bad news out of Greece these days. Credit default swaps widened to records and the EU threatened to send in outside “experts” to sell Greek assets if Papandreou’s government won’t pull the trigger. Despite that EUR/USD ends just above the 1.4100 level, having been as high as 1.4133 intraday.
USD/JPY rallied as high as 82.21 brioefly before stalling below the 100-day moving avergae at 82.23 again. It slid back to the 81.80s during the afternoon on the technical failure and on lower US yields. Yields slumped 4 bp from intraday highs to close on session lows of 3.11.
Cable saw good two action in the high 1.61s. We breifly reached 1.6208 before settling back at 1.6180.
AUD/USD was boosted by the Goldman commodities call, rising modestly to close at 1.0550
