The Greek saga continues

The week we have been looking towards for many months is now approaching. Greece has basically run out of time and the pressure is starting to mount on Greek Prime minister Alexis Tsipras and his anti- austerity party to a close a deal imminently. Pressure is coming from all corners of the globe from Europe itself and even to the Obama administration and the White house in the United States. European finance ministers are  getting anxious about the crisis spreading across Greece borders and in to Europe itself at the same time as the white house are worried about the overall global economy being effected. Greece insists a deal is near but Finance ministers from the countries such as Germany and France are not convinced.

Markets in Europe are trading lower at the time of writing following a slight rally during yesterday’s afternoon session on upbeat headlines on the Greece situation. A relief intraday rally that did not see the positive trend seeping through to today’s session.

On the Greek saga, these are the facts and figures broken into basic maths. Greece have to pay over 1.6 billion euros to the international monetary fund and they don’t have the money. The first of these instalments is due on June the 5th.   

Apart from headlines from Greece, yesterday was a relatively quiet day in terms of data with the main figure being the German consumer confidence which came in slightly better than expected at 10.2. On the other hand in France, the figure came in slightly lower than expected.

In terms of data, this morning we followed the German import price index which came in slightly better than expected.  Economic business and consumer confidence readings for May are expected later on today.  Furthermore, this afternoon there will be the release of the weekly Initial Jobless claims out of the US as well as the April pending home sales.

On the political front, the G7 meeting is now under way in Dresden with Greek bailout talks being mentioned on the forefront of the agenda. A conference is expected on Friday.

Disclaimer:

This article was issued by Darin Pace, Treasury Manager at Calamatta Cuschieri. For more information visit, www.cc.com.mt. The information, view and opinions provided in this article is being provided solely for educational and informational purposes and should not be construed as investment advice, advice concerning particular investments or investment decisions, or tax or legal advice. Calamatta Cuschieri & Co. Ltd has not verified and consequently neither warrants the accuracy nor the veracity of any information, views or opinions appearing on this website.