In the past two days of trading, the VIX has plunged to 64.70 and is down 20 percent since it's record high last Thursday. Clearly, The government bailout of Citigroup and President Elect Obama's announcement of the Chairman of the New York Fed Timothy Geithner to be the next Treasury Secretary has sparked this market rally. Unclear however, is how long all of this will last. The economy still has not healed from bad news in home sales, unemployment, and the bleak situation of financial institutions worldwide. In light of all this, are we starting to climb out of this financial abyss or was this just a bear market rally? Time will most certainly tell.
ECB officials said last night that ECB President Mario Draghi will likely wait to hear Germany’s Constitutional Court’s ruling on the EFSM before publicly unveiling his plans. Many were hoping Draghi would unveil his plan after the ECB’s September 6th meeting, but this is becoming increasingly unlikely. Today Reuters is reporting that Germany is the latest European nation to begin studying the possible impact of a Greek exit from the Euro. This comes ahead of Chancellor Merkel’s meeting with Greece’s Prime Minister today. Merkel has repeatedly said that she would like Greece to remain in the common currency, though clearly someone in Germany believes a Greek exit is possible outcome worth preparing for. This morning US new durable goods orders numbers we released for July, coming in at a gain of 4.2% M/M. Though this was strong than expected, it was primarily driven by strong aircraft sales. Non-defense orders excluding aircraft were down a sharp 3.4% M/M versus a 0.2% decline expecte...
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