Today is Greek day in the EU – again | Other market sensitive events include German IFO index and US Durable Goods

Once more the Eurogroup of member state finance ministers will come together today in Riga, Latvia, to discuss matters of material interest, and top of the agenda will be the situation in Greece. There have been a number of comments of a semi-public nature, picked up by agencies such as Reuters, to the effect that the group does not intend to create any more deadlines for Greece to come up with proposals, as it is recognised that these create an opportunity for positioning and brinkmanship, ultimately leading to disruption or potential disruption in the currency markets. At the same time the Greek banks are being cut a little slack by the announcement that the emergency funding upon which they have been surviving will be increased, albeit not by a lot.

Our Brussels correspondent tells us there is now a sense in which the rest of the EU is attempting to (1) manage rather than quickly resolve the Greek situation and (2) insulate the rest of the Eurozone and the Euro itself from Greece so that if the worst does come to the worst for the Hellenic Republic, it will not be the end of the road for the Single Currency. The markets seem to be accepting that this strategy is a runner, because EURUSD has been behaving rather well of late. But time, as always, will tell.

Other market sensitive events include German IFO index and US Durable Goods

The German IFO Business Climate index will be published this morning. IFO is a Munich based academic / business institute that carries out a very large survey of German businesses on a regular basis. It is highly regarded, not least because business sentiment in Germany has the real possibility of moving the Euro against its main global counterparts.

Then, later on in the global day, around the start of the US session, we will have the US Census Bureau release of the cost of orders received by manufacturers for goods that are expected to have a lifetime of three years or more. Transportation equipment, by which is largely meant aircraft, is regarded as possibly distorting these figures as a leading economic indicator, so Durable Goods Orders ex Transportation are published seperately. As with the IFO index, the Forex markets take note of these.