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A collapse for the Greek government bonds on the international markets

08 April 2010 / 13:04:28  GRReporter
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For the third day in a row the value of the Greek bonds collapses on the international markets after the statements of an anonymous government source before the financial issue Market News International that Greece is trying to renegotiate the mechanism for financial support by the countries members of the euro zone in order to eliminate from it the International Monetary Fund. Most affected are the government bonds with 10 years period of maturity whose spread index “hit” its 12 years record and its value reached 445 points. This means that the interest at the time of the payment of the bonds with 10 years maturity period for Greece reached 7,5 per cent. This is the highest interest which a country member of the European Union is forced to pay for its government bonds. As a comparison the interest rate at which Poland is selling analogical bonds is 5,54 percent, for Hungary it is 6,78 percent, for Ireland it is 4,50 percent and for Spain it is 3,88 percent.

A collapse also suffered the rest of the Greek government bonds. The spread index for the bonds with two years maturity period reached 561 points, for the ones with three years maturity the index reached 562 points and for the bonds with five years maturity period – 460 points. These are the values from yesterday. Today the same index for the bonds with two years maturity period is already 600 points! At the same time the cds index also increases, which means the insurance against bankruptcy of the government. Today it reached 453,3 points. Practically this means that the insurance for every 10 million euro in Greek debt now costs 448,500 euro! Until now the Greek economists were blaming the big hedge funds for a gross speculative game against the country. Many experts, quoted by the Wall Street Journal, however believe that against Greece are already betting also banks, corporations and traditional investors who have already invested in Greece and are currently trying to insure their investments.

Oil is now taking to extinguish the fire a publication in the newspaper Financial Times according to which since the beginning of the year investment have been withdrawn from the Greek banks for the amount of over 10 billion euro due to the threat of the government that it wants proofs of origin of the money of all investors and due to the total uncertainty surrounding the condition of the Greek economy. According to the newspaper these capitals represent about 4,5 percent of the total liquidity of the Greek banks and are reinvested mainly in banks in Cyprus and Luxembourg. The Greek bankers described as untrue the data stated by the competent financial newspaper. However what could be said with certainty is that the Greek banks put a huge pressure on the Greek government to defreeze the second part of the government subsidy for them and at the end of the day they managed to achieve it. The biggest financial institutions in the country applied right away for financial subsidy in cash.

The whole confusion on the international markets of course affected also the Athens Stock Exchange, which index only today dropped by 5 percent and ended the day at 1889,03 points. Following the logic the shares of the banks decreased in price the most. The greatest losses were suffered by Eurobank EFG as its shares decreased in price by 9,03 percent, followed by Priaeus Bank – 7,72 percent, Alpha Bank – 7,1 percent and the National bank of Greece – 7,05 percent. “The banks are tearing the stock exchange as their profit suffers the most from the increase of the spread index. The investors are scared that the Greek economy is on the edge of even greater recession and that the government will not be able to execute the Program for stability”, says Takis Zamanis member of the investment company Beta Χρηματιστηριακή, quoted by the Reuters agency.

The fear from the further spread of the Greek crisis tore the value of the euro which is now traded for less than 1,33 US dollars and compared to the Japanese Yen it nailed 124,08 Yens per euro. Since the beginning of 2010 the common European currency depreciated by 7%.

Tags: economic crisis Greek bonds Athens stock exchange markets
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