by Calculated Risk on 1/25/2015 09:09:00 PM

From the WSJ: Leftists Sweep to Power in Greece

Greek voters were set to hand power to a radical leftist party in national elections on Sunday, a popular rebellion against the bitter economic medicine Greece has swallowed for five years and a rebuke of the fellow European countries that prescribed it.

With nearly all votes counted, opposition party Syriza was on track to win about half the seats in Parliament. In the wee hours of the morning, it clinched a coalition deal with a small right-wing party also opposed to Europe’s economic policy to give the two a clear majority.

We discussed this several years ago - in a democracy, austerity will eventually fail at the ballot box. The people will not tolerate 25% unemployment forever - with no hope in sight.

Monday:
• At 10:30 AM ET: the Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey for January.

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of January 25, 2015

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures: currently S&P futures are down 12 and DOW futures are down 120 (fair value).

Oil prices were down over the last week with WTI futures at $44.99 per barrel and Brent at $48.45 per barrel.  A year ago, WTI was at $96, and Brent was at $109 - so prices are down 54% and 56% year-over-year respectively.

Below is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are around $2.02 per gallon (down about $1.25 per gallon from a year ago).  If you click on "show crude oil prices", the graph displays oil prices for WTI, not Brent; gasoline prices in most of the U.S. are impacted more by Brent prices.

Orange County Historical Gas Price Charts Provided by GasBuddy.com