Greece's swearing-in of new Prime Minister Lucas Papademos is one change. The second change is a new president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi. The third change, and this is a big one, and has not taken place yet, is when and if Silvio Berlusconi resigns from office. Mario Monti, is apparently the front-runner for the job. Not a big deal for Italy to change governments as they have had over 60 new ones since 1948.<br /><br />With all the changes taking place in Europe, it isn't going to change the overall dire financial picture overnight. Changing governments is one thing, that easy, getting the citizens of that country to accept draconian austerity measures is a totally different can of worms.The markets here in the US are like a roller coaster, so far this year the Dow has seen 88 triple digit trading days, compared to just 70 in 2010. As we have stated in some earlier blog postings, the volatility factor remains extremely high in all the markets as uncertainty reigns and rules the markets right now.
