Greece and the euro zone may be in a temporary stalemate, but you wouldn't know that looking at Europe.
The Greece ATHEX Composition has risen 6 percent, and a somewhat vague declaration on a cease-fire in Ukraine is animating the rest of Europe, with all major bourses up.
European banks are especially strong after a terrible January, with Credit Suisse performing especially well on the back of a strong earnings report and additional cost-cutting measures. The bank's earnings results cover a period before the Swiss National Bank cut the peg between the Swiss franc and the euro.
How expensive is it to live and work in Switzerland? The Credit Suisse CFO said as part of a series of cost-cutting initiatives, the bank would be moving employees out of Switzerland to lower-cost locations.
Ouch!
There's a bid under oil as well. How quickly are companies adjusting to the drop in oil prices? Apache (APA), which reported an earnings beat and a revenue miss this morning, said "We have reduced our rig count from an average of 91 rigs in the third quarter of 2014 to an estimated 27 rigs by the end of this month." Their fracking crews have also been reduced by about 50 percent.
The point is that U.S. oil business, particularly those involved in the fracking business, are able to ramp production up and down much more quickly than other oil exploration and production ventures elsewhere in the world. It means that supply and demand is likely to get closer to equilibrium—and more stable prices--sooner than many expected.
Elsewhere, semiconductors are rallying. The S&P Semiconductor ETF, a basket of the largest semiconductor companies, hit a historic high on Wednesday. It's been moving up since the markets began calming down at the end of January, and a number of companies have been notably strong:
- NVIDIA: Up 8 percent
- Analog Devices: up 7 percent
- Micron: Up 6 percent
- : up 5 percent
- Texas Instruments: up 5 percent