The Bolt from the Blue

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"I'm beginning to come round to that opinion. All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything. And I resumed the struggle." – Waiting for Godot

I've really got to say, yesterday afternoon's surprise Greek News messed with my head. We have to deal with uncertainties in the market every day, but let's face it, the vast majority of market news is presented before-hours or after-hours so that people can have time to digest it. There's a good reason that companies don't do earnings announcements in the middle of the day. It's the same good reason that the government doesn't issue key economic reports 15 minutes before the close.

So having this Greek thing pounce on the market yesterday was pretty much universally unexpected. Some folks got lucky, I imagine, and profited from it, but for a lot of people, the gyrations of yesterday were frustrating.

The bizarre thing is how much the planet has become focused on this one tiny nation. I didn't know Greece manufactured anything except tourism. But here we are, half a world away, obsessively wrapped up in a parliamentary vote about austerity measures that, let's face it, no one really believes will be carried out over a five-year period. Five years? Hell, five days is a long horizon at this point.

In any case, like it or not, we're all FOREX traders now. It's never what I set out to be, but for now, we're at the mercy of the Euro's gyrations. Good luck out there today. It's a mine field.