21 February 2012 at 8:26 GMT
Well, what do you know? The Greeks and other parties agreed to the terms of the second bailout package to the beleaguered country overnight. Greece will receive another EUR 130 billion in aid in exchange for new promises to (deficit-)spend less.
Is the Eurozone out of the woods yet? No. Will there still be obstacles to overcome for this agreement with Greece? Yes. Will Greece eventually default? Probably, yes. But - aided by the ECB's easing of monetary policy - the crisis has so far been more or less contained to Greece (and Portugal and Ireland) though we had a good scare last fall when Italy and Spain threatened to join the "party." This is what Eurozone leaders should truly worry about, rather than Greece or Portugal - harsh as it may sound.
In light of this news, we have attempted to dig up a few numbers worthy of attention today, but it is on the soft side:
- Dec. Canadian retail sales (13:30 GMT) to stay more or less flat? Consensus expects sales at the retail level to ease 0.1% in the last month of 2011 though inch up 0.1% excluding autos. Canada has so far withstood headwinds from Europe well, and leading economic series point to more growth ahead.
- Jan. US Chicago Fed National Activity Index (13:30): The index, which is based on 85 underlying time series in areas such as employment, production and prices, is expected to start the year off on a positive side with a 0.22 print according to consensus, after 0.17 in December. Note that a 0 reading points to trend growth, not flat growth.
- Feb. Eurozone Consumer Confidence (15:00): Unsurprisingly, confidence amoung consumers in the Eurozone remains depressed as the monetary union attempts to work through its debt problems. Though a (temporary) trough did form with a December reading of -21.3 and January's -20.7 reading, consensus expects a slight improvement in today's first take on February to -20.1. This is still at a very low level not seen since the Eurozone was attempting a comeback from the global recession of 2008-09.
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