presidential elections in the u.s. since 1928. and in those four cases, the markets subsequently traded higher over the following four years. maybe a crump of comfort for those who are long and wrong on the trade from yesterday. geoff cutmore in london. thanks so much. if you need to know where the focus is already, look at the front pages of the paper. the wall street journal focus moves to the fiscal cliff. the new york times back to work, obama greeted by looming fiscal crisis. the financial times, this morning, rex ryan wins? a new players poll that ranks him as the most overrated coach. his two quarterbacks recently received similar honors. steven colbert can barely drag himself out of bed after the election. we ll get a report o from richard engel on how the rest of
about 2.4%. let s go to cnbc s geoff cutmore life in london. what should we read into the market? good morning, willie. for once it makes sense for europe not to be the catalyst for the market decline. the fall on the dow i think took a few people by surprise. the early running on the results was that the secity trade in europe was higher. when we got into that u.s. session, it started to fade away. i think people focused once again on this impasse we ve got over the resolution of the fiscal cliff, and if it doesn t get dealt with, there are $7 trillion worth of taxes to be imposed and public spending cuts to be introduced which would slow growth for the u.s. economy. so that putting some pressure now on the politicians to get their act together here. just one word for knows who are in the market, wondering what happens here. we ve seen four major declines like this on the day after
popandreou has agreed to step down halfway through his four-year term as greece takes the initial steps towards forming a new coalition government and securing bailout funds from the european union. now the focus of the financial crisis there turns to italy where the cost of borrowing has jumped to its highest rate since that country adopted the euro. let s take an early look at the markets. we go to geoff cutmore life in london. george popandreou was increasingly seen as a problem in terms of at least giving greece the next tranche of the imf/eu aid it was meant to get. he put his hand up and said the greek people need a further referendum on further austerity and how we ll get ourselves out of this financial crisis. that didn t go down too well with the eu or imf who were lining up to give the next tranche of aid. george popandreou is gone.
we will get a unity government created, but still we don t know who will be in that government or exactly how it will be formed, but it is seen as very much the next piece of the jigsaw puzzle when it comes to moving forward in this crisis. the markets are nervous, though. we are down in the european session and we have been through most of the session as you can see here. in the early call on the u.s. open is quite week. in part that s the biggest story. italy, which is into the market for $2.2 trillion in debt set for a very crucial vote tomorrow, and they ll be nervousness going into that vote as to whether the berlusconi government can survive. back to you. amazing, jeff, we hop from one country to the next every week. this week it s italy. geoff cutmore life in london. profits for american firms are reaching record highs not sen since 2008.