What A Busy Day For A Monday

This was a day that just kept you jumping. The morning opened quietly in the Asian markets, with the celebration of the Lunar New Years several markets in China and Korea were closed making it a day of low volume.

As the day progressed, we kept hearing about a deal between Greece and their creditors, although there doesn’t seem to be a final deal on the table and default still looms as a possibility for Greece, EU leadership continues to sing a happy melody assuring the world that a deal would be reached to avoid a Greek default. There are many interpretations of a deal and default. The EU believes as long as a deal is reached, even if it is forced upon the creditors that it is not a default, but by its true definition anytime a debtor fails to pay in full their obligations they are in default, at least a technical default.

The other illusion is what private deals and agreements are being made behind closed doors, why would a creditor with insurance or a swap accept less money than they are due. Why would anyone accept a loss of up to 70%?

Well as this plays out, while you are watching the main circus act in the center ring, off in the far ring, the EU Ministers are doing something else, and what is this something else. They imposed an immediate embargo on all Iranian oil and freeze all the assets of the Iranian Central Bank.

What does this do, it turns on the rhetoric from the Iranian leadership and its one thing they can do and that is yell and scream and threaten…

As the euro surges on promises of a deal on Greece, oil surges on threats of the Iranians. What do investors do they run for safety driving gold up by 12.80 to 1677.00. Now crude is just at 100.00 up close to 2.00. The USD is dropping against all foreign currencies due to the EU assurances of a settlement in Greece.

What do we have not, EU exchange markets up, the euro up, the dollar down, gold skyrocketing, oil climbing. And then there is Natural Gas that all of a sudden is climbing off a down side to pick up from 2.32 on Thursday to 2.56 on Monday.

Talk about a busy day… We had successful German bond sales, a T bill sale in the US… and then what happens…

US markets plummet. Wall Street has been on the upswing since the beginning of the year, reaching its highest levels since July, just fell apart today, at high noon today, the Dow fell 38.2 points, or 0.3%, to 12682, the S&P 500 dipped 3.6 points, to 1311 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 12.1 points, or 0.43%, to 2775. US markets have kicked off the year in rally mode, with the broad S&P 500 surging 4.6% higher and the Dow picking up just over 500 points so far in January.

What a busy day for a Monday.