• Details emerged finally over 6 hours later than expected
  • Nothing unexpected in the package with financing to total EUR130bln, debt/GDP to fall to 120% by 2020 and a nominal private haircut of 53.5%
  • EUR/USD rallied on the announcement but will still end the Asian session unchanged
  • German FinMin says national central banks will contribute 1.8%/GDP to Greek debt reduction
  • IMF Lagarde says IMF board will decide in second week of March how much they will contribute to Greek bailout
  • Japan FinMin Azumi said before the announcement, that EZ needs to do more to help itself before China and Japan can help via IMF
  • RBA minutes: Rate setting appropriate for economic outlook
  • RBNZ survey has average inflation expectations for New Zealand at 2.24%
  • Regional stockmarkets generally 0.5% lower although Sydney market rose by 0.75%
  • Gold $1735/oz, Oil $105/bbl

It was a session of waiting, as Asia opened expecting the EU group meeting to end at any minute. It was in fact 6 1/2 hours later before the final details were presented.

EUR/USD opened around 1.3250 but immediately started drifting lower when the press conference was constantly delayed. The market had overwhelmingly expected a Greek deal to be agreed upon, and was therefore probably sitting a little long on an intraday basis, and these longs kept getting squeezed out, the longer the decision was delayed. The lows were reached just before the announcement, after which we had a sharp 70 pip spike. After a short period of consolidation near 1.3250, we had another push higher as crosses like EUR/GBP and EUR/JPY took out resistance levels. Once stop-losses were all done, EUR/USD has fallen back to its opening levels; much ado about nothing, Ranges: 1.3184/1.3292; EUR/JPY 105.01/96; EUR/GBP .8337/82

AUD/USD was the other busy pairing, losing ground early in the session alongside the EUR and finally triggering stop-loss orders below 1.0690. The EU announcement led to a sharp recovery rally but EUR/AUD buying has since weighed. Ranges: 1.0681/1.0759

USD/JPY 79.53/79; cable 1.5806/58; EUR/CHF 1.2065/81