httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCNigCbZ98M

All in all yesterday was a bit of a disappointment. Central bank day has become important in name only, the great Greek slide in to the sea didn’t or hasn’t happened yet and the election trail is proving more annoying by the day!

Both the BOE and the ECB kept their main policy rates as before as everyone and their dog expected. The Bank of England did not publish a statement on the economy either. I bet their meeting was a cracker; although I bet Master Chef got a little discussion.

The ECB press conference was always more likely to cause some volatility with journalists keen to know what Trichet really thinks of Greece. He did however brush them away fairly nonchalantly and no new insight can be gleaned as a result. Greece is obviously still in a mountain of trouble however with the yield on its 10 year debt increasing on a daily basis (the spread over bunds also rose to an eye-watering 450bps yesterday).Recent days have shown that the Greek problem is going to be longer and more hard fought than EU leaders probably envisioned and there is a lot of talk of default around including this rather pessimistic view from Stephen Lewis at Monument Securtites:

Our chief worry all along has been that the terms on which Greece received international credit might be so onerous as to trigger political and social breakdown in that country. The result then might be that there would be no effective government in Athens willing to undertake the servicing of the debt, let alone the economic conditions attaching to a bail-out.

Bad times.

We did however see some good news from the UK yesterday. Manufacturing and Industrial production figures were released above expectation and news reports that the NIESR is due to release a bullish Q1 GDP estimate on April 23^rd have swelled the pound in the overnight session.

The data calendar is quiet today however watch out for more news from Greece; I have a feeling that ‘something wicked this way comes’ for our Hellenic cousins.