European Central Bank

The next few weeks will be interesting to see whether or not the European Union and the European Central Bank really care about the wellbeing of Greece and the Greek economy.

The original reason for the bailout of Greece was to ‘protect the country’ and to ensure the EU-member would have a fair chance to sort all of its issues out. Contrary to what most people (including us) expected, the country was indeed able to put itself back on track, and the budget results of fiscal 2016 are emphasizing Greece is indeed doing much better.

While US stocks closed near session, and all time highs on Friday, the first green close on inauguration day in over 50 years, Monday has seen a modest case of buyer's remorse, with European stocks sliding, Asian shares mixed and U.S.

Less than 4 years ago, and shortly after his infamous "whatever it takes" threat to speculators, Mario Draghi responded to a question from Zero Hedge readers, saying "there is no Plan B" when it comes to contingency plans for a Eurozone nation leaving the monetary union. The reasoning was simple: the mere contemplation of such a scenario assigned a probability to its occurrence, which is why the ECB was desperate to give the impression that no matter what, Europe's cohesion is unbreakable.

After yesterday's speech by Janet Yellen which signaled a path of steady interest rate increases and was perceived as hawkish, the dollar rebounded, Asian shares slipped and government bond yields jumped to multi-week highs on Thursday.