Monday A.M. Update

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend, I surely did and I just wanted to say thank you for the many kind, supportive emails over the  weekend, most unexpected and I'm grateful.

The next couple of days promise to hold a lot of volatility and some very big issues.

It wasn't hard to predict that the leftist Syriza party members would rebel against Tsipras's "deal" with the Troika (I'm sorry, the "Institutions") as one of the most well respected and senior members of Syriza penned an open letter this weekend blasting Syriza's leaders for coming to this deal as well as apologizing to voters for Syriza's rolling over as he called the "deal" akin to renaming "Fish" to "Meat" and encouraged voters and others to stand together, stand strong and confront the Troika, something which PM Tsipras just found out is much easier said than done in the grand spanking that he received Friday with the market foolishly thinking this was good news.

Today Greece must submit the "Additional measures" that are to be "significant" with regard to what they are going to do to guarantee the loan is paid back, if the Troika/Germany were to accept these additional measures which from early reports it already sounds like this is going to be a huge NO, then it would have to be passed in Greek Parliament which right now is in upheaval with Syriza falling apart as the majority still want confrontation with the Troika and to get out of what they view as a "Debtor's colony".

From some early "Sourced" leaks, it sounds like the Greeks additional measures will include protecting primary residences from foreclosure, which the Germans will not accept. Additionally they would like to slowly raise the minimum wage until 2016, again the Germans will not accept this and they want to protect pensions, pensions which have been stripped by th "agreement" or bailout which again will not float with Germany. So the proposals to be submitted before midnight today are almost certainly a non-starter and Greece faces the imminent halt of all funds from the Troika and becomes insolvent within weeks.

This really could not have gone much worse and the idiocy of the market celebrates it on Friday!

The drama in Greece is far from over. All I can say to this is if you are going up against the establishment, you better be ready to do whatever it takes and not try to bluff your way through it with no plan "B".

What may be even more interesting is Janet Yellen's semi-annual 2-day testimony starting tomorrow (formerly Humphrey Hawkins) in front of Congress. Both sides, Democrats and Republicans each have a bone to pick. Generally speaking Democrats are uncomfortable with what they see as the F_E_D's "too cozy" relationship with Wall Street. Republicans are generally saying the F_E_D's monetary policy is too aggressive and looking to strip away many of the F_E_D's powers and oversight. This testimony , this week is being called the biggest threat to the F_E_D since Dodd-Frank nearly stripped the F_E_D of supervisory powers. 

There are numerous proposals from both sides of the isle including Rand Paul's "Audit the F_E_D" push, a potential bill that would demand that the Senate confirm the NY F_E_D bank president as it retains a permanent voting seat on the F_O_M_C while other regional F_E_D banks rotate in and out of voting in the F_O_M_C. The number of different proposals and potential bills to strip the F_E_D are too many to cover here, many are small bills with little support that will go nowhere, but otherwise, the only person the F_E_D has in its corner is the President, beyond that Democrats and Republicans crossing the isle to support bills to limit the F_E_D's powers is not out of the question by a long shot.

On top of all of that, the market will eagerly be looking for any hints as to what F_E_D policy in the near term may be as rate hikes are next, yet we have the worst negative surprise macro data for 2015 so far since Lehman.

In another record new low for the Baltic DRY Shipping Index, we have news of the 3rd shipping company in 3 weeks filing for bankruptcy, this is the real global economy, the F_E_D is between a rock and a hard place.

Meanwhile the Ukraine cease-fire is not only not holding and never even started, but it seems events are accelerating with Kiev saying the war is likely to spread and Kiev believes it will come up against Russia and is demanding the west send "lethal weapons" to support Kiev's current and very fluid situation.

On a side note, I just can't get past the "Mall" terror alerts days before the DHS is about to run out of funding...ironic timing?

We have a lot of macro data this week from across the globe, some political theater as well beyond Greece, but it looks to me as I said Friday, there's very little upside and just about pure risk moving forward from here.

I'll obviously be watching the market for signs of how the market is preparing and taking the Yellen testimony as well as the Greek situation.

As I also said last week/Friday, I didn't think the Greek "deal" was going to change the fact that everything (well lets just say many things) are pointing to the market rolling over and I have expected the next roll to undercut the October lows so I'll be looking at that closely and where the opportunities are.

The fireworks should be starting later today/tonight and certainly tomorrow through the rest of the week.

Market updates are on the way.