Syriza begins Eurozone finance tour, US suffers inconsistent earnings season

The markets remained choppy this afternoon as investors struggled to process a deluge of mixed news as the day went on.

Despite being spooked by Syriza’s continued faith to their pre-election promises, the Eurozone indices appear somewhat reassured by the country’s discourse with the region’s important financial figures. After European Parliament President Schulz stated that Greece is still willing to play its role in the EU following a meeting with Alexis Tspiras, there was further news that the OECD’s Angel Gurria is going to advise the country with their debt negotiations.

Savvy finance minister Yanis Varoufakis is set to visit London on Monday to meet with his economic-opposite George Osborne, before meeting France’s Macron and Sapin later in February. These moves seem to have calmed talks of a ‘Grexit’ and helped the euro make headway against the dollar; despite Syriza’s seriousness over renegotiating Greek debt, these are the actions of considered politicians rather than the radical upstarts the party is often painted as and this shift in perception is helping the Eurozone indices.

In other European news, Germany’s inflation turned negative for the first time in over 5 years; whilst it is easy to attribute this drop to the ongoing cheapness of oil, the sense of stagnation in the region is not a new phenomenon, and Germany is just the latest to feel the squeeze. Tomorrow will see more inflation news for the entire region, and if this German figure is anything to go by, it will not be good news for the Eurozone indices.

The FTSE managed to hang on to its gains as the day went on, with Brent Crude oil creeping towards the $49 per barrel mark, and copper managing to stabilise slightly around $246 per pound. The FTSE is still seeing losses in many of its energy and mining stocks, but is beginning to resist the index wide drag these declines have caused in the past couple of days, undoubtedly helped by a better than expected CBI realised sales figure.

Missed targets for Alibaba and a mixed reaction to Facebook’s latest statement were countered by Ford exceeding expectations, a new CEO for McDonald’s and strong jobless claims data for the US markets. Thursday has two more giants to announce with Google and Amazon set to send ripples through the American indices when they reveal their numbers later today. With this earnings season a mess, and a relatively hawkish statement from the Fed dampening US spirts, the advance GDP figure set to be released tomorrow is going to be the latest piece of data for the markets to endure, with estimates pointing to a decline.