Much is being done of the fact that Greece could be on the verge of reaching of some kind of agreement with its creditors. It started a few months ago when Sarkozy supposedly negotiated a “voluntary” forgiveness of about 50% of debt held in private hands. This includes hedge funds, banks, pension funds and other [...]

On Friday, Standard and Poor’s downgraded nine European countries, including France and Austria. Both of these countries are large guarantors of the European Financial Stability Facility, otherwise known as the bailout fund. Combined, France and Austria are responsible for Euro 180 billion of credits supporting the fund. For the EFSF to retain its AAA rating, [...]

Employment numbers dominated Friday. First from the Eurozone, then from Canada and Finally the NFP report from the USA. While all were important, the NFP data proved to be the biggest market mover, as it typically does. According to the Non-Farm Payroll report, US economy added 200 K jobs in December, above the forecast of [...]