Cyprus deal done. Stocks advanced strongly on Monday morning after 11th-hour talks to save Cyprus from default resulted in a last-minute bailout deal with the Troika. Following a meeting of Eurozone finance ministers that lasted almost 12 hours, Cyprus agreed to a EUR 10 bn aid package that doesn’t include a controversial across-the-board bank-account tax but involves forcing big losses on uninsured depositors.
Cyprus is about as economically significant as the German city-state of Bremen, and yet the attention of citizens and politicians alike was focused on the debt-ridden country on the continent’s periphery last week and through the weekend. Since Cypriot parliament rejected the initial bailout plan, one crisis meeting followed the next in Berlin, Frankfurt and Brussels as concepts were presented, revised, rejected and resubmitted. In the end, the European Central Bank (ECB) imposed an ultimatum on the country. The message from ECB President Mario Draghi was that either Cyprus agrees to the bailout conditions or it could be the first member of the Eurozone to declare a national bankruptcy.
032513 CGI Morning Market Commentary & Weekly Charts