httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfaimN6TMks

Yet another Friday, yet another bailout package for the Greeks. After a week of spiraling bond yields and increasing fear over the state of the economy Greece was left with only one thing to do. There is not much detail on the structure of the loans via the EU or the IMF yet and we expect those to come out this week as money starts to flow to the state.

European and Greek assets, including the euro, surged dramatically after the announcement but soon started to weaken again come the afternoon session. This is of course not a long term plan for the Greek economy but gives them two things they were running out of; time and liquidity.

Sterling is galloping higher this morning after a fairly poor Friday. We were correct in our predictions for Friday’s GDP figure (0.2% against  a consensus view of 0.4%) which saw sterling just trickle back from its recent highs. The 0.2% does mean that fears for a double dip recession have lessened and was taken by all political parties as vindication for their various policies. Retail sales, or the lack thereof, caused the slight fall but that should be patched up by the time the next estimate comes out in a month’s time.

The election was relatively quiet over the weekend as Cameron attended his sister’s wedding, Gordon Brown met Elvis and Nick Clegg went home to see if his kids still remember what his face looks like. Opinion polls have continued to show that the election will be a close fought thing with hung parliament the likely outcome.

Over the weekend we had the latest of the G20 meetings. The international bank tax put together by the IMF last week was discussed but no agreement was reached with Canada particularly vocal in its opposition. It should be positive for risky assets and we would expect EM and equities to perform well today.

The calendar is quiet today apart from a speech from Trichet at 17.30 about Global Governance. We will be looking for any suggestions of personal opinion on the fortunes of Greece, Europe or indeed the World’s economy.