One of the biggest weeks for the markets this year got off to a positive start on Monday but futures suggests these gains will be pared shortly after the open this morning, suggesting investors remain quite cautious, according to Craig Erlam, market analyst at Oanda.
If investors weren’t already worried enough about whether Greece can come to an agreement with its creditors before it runs out of money, they now have to content with the closest fought UK election in years and a very important US jobs report. This week could be hugely important for the markets, Mr. Erlam added.
He also pointed that Greek negotiations are continuing this week and both sides will be hoping that a deal can be reached by the eurogroup meeting on 11 May, with Greece having to repay €763 million in loans to the IMF a day later. It’s not clear whether Greece would be able to make that payment without the €7.2 billion loan being secured first but comments from Greek officials recently suggest they wouldn’t.
That means a deal really must be close at the very least by Friday or we enter the weekend with an enormous amount of uncertainty hanging over the markets. We’ve seen plenty of times throughout the eurozone crisis what this can do to markets when they reopen and it’s far from ideal, he concluded.
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