THE WEEKEND LEFT

...with nary a surprise I might add.  Hollande won but with a rather small margin which may give him pause and the Greeks, always emraptured by craziness in politics dramatically improved the lot of the Communists  and the neo Nazis leaving the middle without the ability to form a colalition government meaning that we will have to do the whole thing over again in a couple of months.  Where's Plato when you need him.  Nevertheless the markets shrugged this off as Greece has not been considered long for Euroland in the first place and this just means that the northerners can immediately begin discussions as to the easiest way to get them out before it costs even more money.  Well, at least all the players know one another at this stage which means things might go a bit quicker this time around.  It also means that the Hedge fund guys who refused to join the restructuring of Greek debt may begin to wonder for a Greece running on Drachmas has certainly no incentive to play nice with these guys in the future.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some...and some get rained out.

As for the French, who knows.  I really think the question that needs to be answered is whether Hollande wanted to win as a socialist politician or as a committed socialist.  lets wair until tomorrow for his first statement before we start talking about that.

The real story today is what happened in the Spanish banking sector which will also take another day of assessment.   Be here tomorrow.

WAITING...

For tomorrow and the auction.  I lost a bet today:  I wagered on some grand announcement late in the day that a couple of important Spanish States would come forward to say they had reached complete agreement with the government as to all things financial.  Had that happened--and it still may--the prospects for a decent result tomorrow would have been much improved.  Right now they stink.  Any sort of a decent result is purely the result of the ECB being a bidder early and often.  Not allowed you say?  What if I told you it is not unheard of in Europe for institutions to act as agents for an issuer or a concerned party such as the ECB.  Would I as the head of Bankhaus Charlie buy a boat load of Spanish 10 year if the ECB asked me to do so?  Bet your butt I would.  Friends in high places are good things to have...especially if they come with a put to them.  But rather than speculate, let's wait until tomorrow to see how this comes down.

Oh, by the by, the stock boys sold today upon learning that the Spanish Banks non performings were well up in the 8% range.  Shock.  Want to know a little dirty secret?  The non performings have a lot to do with real estate loans and holdings.  With an honest appraisal, the non-performings are probably at 15%...at least.  I wonder when they are going to figure that out?

Tomorrow, gang.