Archive - Aug 14, 2015

Define irony: in a quarter in which Greece was supposed to have been near death (at least according to the worst PMI print in history and of course, judging by the bank lines in front of the capital controlled institutions), yesterday we learned that Greek GDP surged relative to expectations rising by 0.8%, which was what analysts had expected but with a minus sign in front of it. Then overnight, we got the rest of European GDP, including the big three: Germany, France and Italy. The results were nothing short of a big disappointment. At the Euroarea level, the result was also a big negative surprise with Q3 GDP rising 0.3%, down from 0.4%, and below expectations. This was the worst GDP print since Q3 2014.

Moments ago the Greek parliament, after a dramatic, most likely on purpose, overnight session - because when you are a puppet government of Belgium/Brussels you have to put in extra effort to prove you are "independent" - gave its approval for the third Greek bailout when Tsipras secured votes of more than 151 lawmakers in country’s 300-seat parliament. As on previous cases, the vote passed with substantial opposition support. In terms of numbers, the rebel faction within Syriza is now up to 42, with 43 being seen as the threshold beyond which Tsipras has no choice but to call elections. In other words the Tsipras government now hangs in the fate of just one person.