Olympic Fever

Olympic fever is setting in as the Vancouver games get underway and it's a long weekend in the U.S.NFL football is over and the snow is piled high in many areas.Business seems a million miles from every one's minds except the games' sponsors such as Visa and Verizon.They are in their own competition:Visa with Mastercard and American Express;Verizon with AT&T.As long as AT&T is allied with Apple,which is for the foreseeable future,it's in a very strong position.It doesn't have to worry too much about Verizon.Visa used to slam American Express all the time.It will be interesting to see what their line is for these games.As a processing company,it doesn't have the economic sensitivity of an American Express,which has to worry about defaulting consumers.
Greece was the first team to enter BC Place,the opening ceremony venue.Its own debt problems have dominated financial headlines this week,and will probably do so next week as well.Its European neighbors haven't yet finalized an aid package,so the market will still have that uncertainty to contemplate.In the meantime,let's all have a low-stress weekend.We'll cross the icy bridge when we come to it.