httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU6FjsF54dc

So here we are. May 6th 2010 and the day of the most important general election since the 70s. We won’t know anything until the polls close at 10pm BST (some would say you don’t know anything at all –ed) but it is sure to be a very close election. Overnight the polls have suggested that the race for No. 10 is ‘too close to call’ and that some very marginal seats will decide who stands on the threshold of No.10.

As we detailed yesterday we will be covering the financial ramifications of the voting from 10pm tonight via our Twitter feed www.twitter.com/world_first and at www.worldfirst.com/blog

While the election will be the main story of today the euro and the problems in Athens were definitely the main news yesterday. A poor debt issuance by Portugal in the morning combined with the civil unrest in Greece caused the market to panic like it did in the days of Lehman Brothers. Credit Default Swaps (CDS), the price of insuring against a country’s default have, rose to record prices for both Greece and Portugal while Spain’s also moved higher. We have a Spanish debt auction this morning. If that follows a similar line to yesterday’s Portuguese offering it’s time to break out the tin-hats in the Eurozone.

The euro was hammered massively yesterday and has fallen to a 14 month low against the US dollar, an 11 month low against the pound and a 2 month low versus the Japanese Yen. This is likely to get worse and global reserve managers may be looking to sell out of the euros as well further weakening the single currency.

Data yesterday was lost in a haze of Greek tear gas but was beneficial for the pound. UK PMI data for the construction sector was the strongest it has been in 20 months. We expect to see similar strength in today’s service sector measure at 09.30. EU retail sales were on consensus but even if they had showed that everyone was spending like crazy the euro would have still been crucified yesterday.

We don’t have a Bank of England meeting today because of the election but we do have an ECB meeting. We expect no change in the 1% rate however Trichet’s speech may focus on plans to quantitative ease by buying up debt from EU member states that need finance. The conference starts at 13.30.