This news was out much earlier in the day though when both our markets and the US were open. Hmmm. . . the US markets are closed Monday, maybe that will stave off a panic.

Anyway, this wasn't exactly a surprise. Nothing has actually changed. Their all bickering now about how the US should be "junk-bond status" or the UK has more debt that France and should be downgraded as well. Not very nice.

Anyway, if they want to solve this they could just start printing money and ease up on the austerity. So they either do that or they decide to break up. Meanwhile the Euro is dropping in value and their competitiveness is increasing. Germany, for example, is probably going to make out like a bandit this year. (And so they should for all their hard work, good on them.) That is, unless they have to give it to Greece and Italy.

The worst news of the day is Greece breaking off talks. I'm wondering/hoping that they will spend the weekend in frantic talks to solve that problem before Monday. The European market had a chance to react to this already.