For everyone who thinks Greece is not a factor in the market's weakness today, consider this:
U.S. stocks rallied about 1pm ET Thursday, as the EU's Olli Rehn, European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, said Greece was a special case—and that Spain, Portugal and Italy would avoid a debt crisis.
Why Greece again? Because this morning we found out that Greece's budget gap last year was worse than feared. Inaccuracies in the Greek data have been a serious problem for investors; this doesn't help.
The EU this morning said that Greece's budget deficit in 2009 was 13.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product, up from 12.9 percent, and said it could be further revised upward even more.
Remember, they are supposed to be slashing the deficit; now we find out it was worse than expected!
More Market Insights:
- Governments Will 'Bankrupt Us': Marc Faber
- Be 70-80% in Stocks: Wealth Manager
- Banks May Not Be Lending, But They're Buying Treasurys
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