Another day, another deadline missed in Greece

What was Sunday’s deadline of 11 a.m. Monday for a decision by Greece’s warring political parties to accept the conditions required by the troika of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission before the country can get its next bundle of rescue cash passed without a decision. What we got instead was a decision to move the deadline to Tuesday.

The “agreement” from the European summit is singularly devoid of real progress–so why were European markets up today?

Maybe the crucial explanation for why European stock markets were up today, and Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese bond yields are down is speculation on the size of the next offer of three-year loans by the European Central Bank on February 29. Speculation now is that banks could take down even more money this time.