Wall Street: It's Greek to me (still)

Despite what’s being seen as positive developments out of Europe this week, Wall Street won’t be able to escape the effects of Greece’s financial problems when traders return to work after the long President’s Day weekend.

That’s according to Yahoo Columnist Rick Newman, who warns that we shouldn’t fall for the head fakes-- a resolution to the Greek debt crisis is still a long way away.

“This is a five-act drama,” he says. “We’re maybe in the third act. It’s going exactly according to script, which is: Greece says we’re leaving, throw a tantrum, then they get together with finance ministers in Europe and then they leak, oh, we might be close to an agreement, then what’s going to happen next, we’re not as close as we thought we were.”

But as crazy as it might sound, Newman thinks Wall Street enjoys the drama…because there’s money to be made.

“This is going to go down to the wire, it’s going to be brinksmanship all the way," he adds. "It’s fun to watch and traders love this kind of volatility because you can play it."

But Yahoo Finance Editor in Chief Aaron Task adds that those traders might not be so chipper Tuesday if things turn south in the talks between Greece and its European partners.

“They’re supposed to come up with a deal on Monday,” he points out. “If there’s no deal and there’s huge selling overnight overseas, how is that going to affect us on Tuesday? It will be interesting.”

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Closer to home, investors remain focused on the parade of fourth quarter corporate earnings. And Yahoo Finance’s Jennifer Rogers expects retailers to steal the spotlight…especially the biggest one of them all-- Walmart (WMT).

“It’s going to be interesting to see how they play the strong dollar versus the benefit of gas prices having been down,” she says. “I want to see the tale of those two stories.”

Meantime, Task will be keeping his eye on housing, with new reports on permits and starts coming out. And he points out that while real estate has been a sign of strength in the economy over the past year, we have been seeing some potentially troubling indicators lately.

“Mortgage applications have fallen now for four-straight weeks,” he notes. “Rates rise a little bit and people say, ‘Eh…I don’t know if I want to buy a house.’ And Refi activity was down 10% the past week just because of this little uptick in rates.”

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