Dr. Platon Monokroussos, Chief Market Economist, Deputy General Manager, Eurobank Ergasias S.A
HIGHLIGHTS
WORLD ECONOMIC & MARKET DEVELOPMENTS
GLOBAL MARKETS: Market sentiment towards global equity markets improved on Wednesday following a string of encouraging US data. Against this background, the US currency firmed while US Treasuries weakened with long-dated paper underperforming. The US’ ADP employment report lures market attention today ahead of Friday’s key non-farm payrolls survey.
GREECE: According to some press reports, representatives of the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank will meet for dinner in Brussels tonight in an effort to narrow their differences on the key issues attached to Greece’s 1st programme review. In other news an emergency EU plan aimed at providing humanitarian aid to refugees inside the European Union is expected to be approved today. Meanwhile, at the request of Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, the President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, has called today a council meeting of political leaders ahead of the critical EU-Turkey Summit on March 7th which will focus on the refugee crisis. According to the most recent Bank of Greece data, the total amount of funding taken by Greek banks from the Eurosystem dropped in January for the seventh month in a row coming in at €106.1bn from €107.5bn in the prior month.
SOUTH EASTERN EUROPE
CESEE MARKETS: Emerging stock markets moved broadly higher in European trade on Wednesday, extending the prior session’s up-move following positive macroeconomic data releases from the US overnight. Separately,  regional currencies and government bonds were mixed in early European trade today.
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