httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Ha7b79IzY

So the result was never in doubt really and the Greek ruling party managed to secure enough votes to pass the austerity measures vote. Outside the situation was not so easy as riot police and protestors met head to head in Syntagma Square. Most Greeks questioned after the announcement that the vote had passed were laissez faire in their assessment arguing that the government would have significant difficulty in implementing such measures.

There is one more hurdle left to clear and that is a vote on the how much comes from each cut. We expect this come through at around 1pm and there could be support for the opposition on the smaller items but in the grand scheme of things we expect this vote to pass as well.  

So where does this all leave Greece? Still deep in the woods unfortunately however they will have bought a little bit of time with these votes and they will be enough for the IMF/EU to disburse the next round of bailout payments.

We expect the focus will now switch to the rest of the Eurozone with similar problems likely seen in the rest of the periphery and voter dismay in the core such as Germany. Indeed there was a report yesterday that Germany had begun to print the D-Mark again in order to get ready for an exit of the single currency. Now these rumours normally start flying around at times of crisis and i would not pay too much attention to them. This comes a couple of days before German banks are exp0ected to follow their Spanish and French counterparts in a agreeing a rollover of the Greek debt they hold.

With hurdles cleared and banks doing what is expected of them it is little wonder that the euro is stronger despite the Greek can being kicked down the road so hard that it no longer really resembles a can. EURUSD is nudging the 1.45 level whilst GBPEUR has broken below 1.11.

Sterling is once again weak this morning after a poor consumer confidence figure. This was not a surprise a point Joe highlighted in his weekly Sterling Update this Monday. The official blurb that came with the release was that a fall-off was expected after the bubble caused by the Royal Wedding and the slew of bank holidays we had in April considering the large headwinds the average British consumer will face through the summer months.

There are signs that not all is well in the core of the Eurozone too after German retail sales in  May fell by 2.8% vs. an expected rise of 0.5%. We expect this to be as a result of oil based inflation pressures.

Latest exchange rates at time of writing