A neat summary from NAB's market strategist, Rob Henderson:
"Stock markets in Europe finished higher on news that Greece had received its first bailout payment. However, the rally in Europe was reversed in the second half of New York trading, as news emerged of plans to ban short selling. Bloomberg reported that Germany would temporarily ban naked short selling and naked credit-default swaps of euro-area government bonds at midnight. The ban will also apply to naked short selling in shares of 10 banks and insurers and will last until 31 March 2011. The Germans are also pushing for contributions from the financial sector to pay for costs of the euro zone bailout in the form of financial transaction taxes. The German lower house is expected to vote Friday on the country's contribution of up to EUR148bn to the EU/IMF bailout package and the opposition parties are reported to have said they will only back the bailout package if a financial transaction tax is implemented. Also overnight, Spain planned to issue €8bn of 12 and 18 month bills but only got €6bn away. This augers poorly for their planned €3bn 10-yr bond auction on 20 May."
