Eurozone blues, whilst FTSE and US hold onto gains

Post ECOFIN ol’ sourpuss Wolfgang Schauble waded in and poured cold water over the idea of a Greek-debt solution.

The German finance minister stated that little progress has been made in the last two days, and that many Eurogroup ministers have questioned Syriza on how it would answer its electorate when their minimum wage and pensions begin to get squeezed. In a move that captures the growing animosity between the two parties, Tsipras this afternoon accused Schauble of losing his cool in the meeting last night, whilst corroborating Varoufakis’ claim that Greece were ready to sign a deal only for it to be replaced with an unacceptable deal by Jeroen Dijsselbloem at the last minute.

The Eurozone indices had managed to ride the wave of better-than-expected ZEW economic sentiments this morning, but the renewed focus on the seemingly increasing displeasure on both sides of the Greek/Eurozone divide began to drain these gains. The frustration around this issue appears to be rattling the members involved and the cooler exteriors presented last week are starting to disappear; it is unsurprising that the odds are being slashed on a ‘Grexit’.

Despite futures pointing to a strong open for the US markets, they lost some of their vigour come the bell, as the Empire State manufacturing index fell short of expectations, followed by a two point slip in the NAHB housing market index. Whilst the Dow is still managing to putter along around or above 18000, these figures further expose the flaws in the USA’s economic recovery, flaws that are becoming more apparent with much of 2015’s US data.

Declines in oil began to eat into the FTSE’s gains, but the UK managed to keep in the green as the afternoon continued. However the former shining lights of Tullow Oil and Vedanta Resources both slipped into the red as their respective commodities suffered. After touching the hem of $62 per barrel, Brent Crude has begun to fall back towards $60, whilst copper spent the day receding back to $255 per pound. The biggest commodity loser of the day, however, was gold, which has now reached $1206 per ounce. The precious metal flits between suffering in the face of a rebounding euro and being sapped by the continued strength of the dollar; since its post-ECB QE spike in January, gold has lost nearly $100 in value, with little on the horizon for a short term rescue.