Chinese shares continue to tumble

Today's Highlights

Greece says NO to austerity

Chinese shares continue to tumble

Central bankers take centre stage if the Greek story will let them

FX Market Overview

Well done to England's Women footballers. In spite of that cruel own goal in the semi-final, they soldiered on to take 3rd in the world cup. If only the men's team could get that close. Well done to the American women for a stunning victory to take the world cup itself. Well done to Lewis Hamilton for a very mature drive to take the big shiny gold cup at Silverstone. That'll make him happy.

The people of Greece have spoken and 'Ochi ef_charisto' (NO thanks) was the resounding answer to whether they would tolerate further austerity. As such, their 60:40 vote has caused the finance minister to step down because he was an obstacle to further negotiation with Berlin and they may have started the process of Greece exiting the Euro but, as has been expressed this morning, the Greek government do not want to exit the EU itself. Greek banks though are perilously close to running out of cash in spite of the €60 per day restriction based on ATM withdrawals. Uncharted territory lies ahead. No country has exited the Euro thus far, no country has fallen behind on IMF loans before and no country in the Eurozone has defaulted on EU debt payments so fur but that could all change by the 20th July when Greece has to repay part of its debt.

In spite of all this uncertainty, has the euro slumped? No it hasn't. In fact, such was the expectation of turmoil that the euro weakened at the end of last week but strengthened this morning. I suspect this will be a very volatile week for the shared currency and I have no doubt whatsoever that we will hear the word 'grexit' on far too many occasions in the days ahead. For now the Euro - US Dollar rate looks vulnerable to further declines, with the channel bottom at $1.04 being a possibility and the Sterling - Euro rate is slipping back towards €1.40 support.

Further falls in the Chinese share prices in spite of heavy government interference have worried Asian investors. We can see that impact in slightly weaker Australian and New Zealand Dollars. We get the interest rate decision from the Reserve Bank of Australia tomorrow morning. No change to the 2.0% base rate is forecast but they must be worried about slowing growth in some areas of the Aussie economy and the effect that a weaker currency will have on inflation. We will listen for comments on these factors when they make that announcement.

Two other central bankers will be in the news. The US Federal Reserve will release the minutes from their last meeting. That will be pretty straightforward; no change and, almost certainly, unanimous voting but everyone will be feverishly scanning the minutes for hints of the date of the first interest rate hike. That could well cause a few flutters in USD related exchange rates.

And the Bank of England will make its interest rate announcement on Thursday. No change is expected, so that could be a damp squib but the Chancellor will make his budget statement before that and that is likely to be far more influential. The first Conservative majority budget in umpteen years will be a chance for Mr Osborne's to set out his stall for 5 years of transformation. His every nuance, intimation and intonation will be seized upon and discussed ad-nauseam. Be ready for that then.

There will be a smattering of tier 1 data this week but much of it will be overshadowed by the Greek news. We will end the week with Canada's employment data though. There is a chance this will be a tad more upbeat than recent Canadian economic data in spite of the slowdown in China and the effect that is having on commodity prices. If the forecasts are accurate, the Canadian Dollar has scope to strengthen so please be wary if you are a CAD buyer.

Have a great week. And good luck to Andy Murray who will face dozens of 135 mph services which start roughly 10 feet in the air off the racquet of 6ft 11" Ivo Karlovic. Better you than me Andy.