Granite Group Advisors

Last week the ECB agreed that they will be combining the financial systems of the Eurozone and changing the bailout process in an attempt to fix the debt crisis. Markets reacted quite favorably to this report and on the final trading day of the quarter the markets were up dramatically. Our perspective is that this is a temporary movement as the European zone is still in a very difficult situation. Spain and Italy are still in horrible financial shape and there is no quick fix for this. Additionally, this morning France, which is one of the most stable countries in the Eurozone, reported that they are in a deficit of roughly 33 billion Euros in government spending for 2013 that needs to be addressed in some form of austerity. The bottom line the Eurozone debt crisis is far from over.