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live Thriller with the payment of bonds worth 436 million, maturing today

15 May 2012 / 14:05:42  GRReporter
2509 reads

"The 3 Greek parties did notapprove repayment of a €436m bond due on Tuesday. If no payment occurs there is a 30 day grace period be4 default." This is Nouriel Roubini’s Twitter post about the fate of Greek bonds due on 15 May 2012. They fall under English law and were not included in the process of the public debt reduction. Their holders expect to be paid the full face value of government bonds and the issue of how Greece will treat the creditors who did not lend a hand in the PSI is quite delicate.

At the same time, Reuters has informed that Greece will pay its bond obligations due on Tuesday, which is just the opposite of Nouriel Roubini’s information. "The bond will be paid," a senior Greek government official, who wished to remain anonymous, said to the agency. The website iefimerida.gr suggests a third scenario in which Evangelos Venizelos, Antonis Samaras and Alexis Tsipras are in constant touch with the interim Prime Minister Lucas Papademos. By the end of the day, he has to present in writing his views on how to proceed with the pending debt. "Papademos seems reserved to the idea of not paying the bond debt, because such a move would have serious political and economic consequences," reads the publication. The Ministry of Finance has not yet made an official statement about what actions it will take on the payment of the bond obligations.

The political instability and the inability of Greek parties to reach consensus to form a government is further shaking the confidence of Europe and the world. Faith in the ability of Greece to escape the morass of the crisis is declining. Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker is trying to dispel the clouds and after the meeting of finance ministers in Brussels on Monday, he called stupid and propaganda the rumours that Greece would exit the euro area. However, financial analysts do not think that Juncker is completely sincere by expressing a similar opinion. As for the issue of whether Greece should pay the obligations under the bond loan this week, Juncker has made it clear that this is a problem of the Greek government, not of Eurogroup.

While deciding on how and when the 436 billion euro due will be paid, the Public Debt Management Agency has announced that Greece is on the market again. On Tuesday, the state have sold quarterly government bonds by auction and raised 1.3 billion euro; the interest rate rose by 14 points. Greece received an interest rate of 4.20% a month ago for the same type of securities, whereas it reached 4.34% during the auction on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the National Institute of Statistics announced that the gross domestic product shrank by 6.7% in the first quarter of 2012 compared to the same period of 2011 and base prices of 2005.

Failed talks of political forces and the announcement of new elections plunged the financial markets both in Greece and in Europe. The Athens Stock Exchange closed with losses of 3.62%, the Greek stock market closed at 562.88 basis points, while the turnover was 43.1 million euro. Shares of banks lost 4.9%, those of industrial products fell by 6%,those of services dropped by 5.24%. The index of London Stock Exchange FTSE-100 fell by 0.74% following the news about the Greek failure. The financial index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange DAX lost 1.06%, IBEX in Madrid dropped by 1.64%, Milan Exchange recorded a loss of 1.72%. The European index FTSEurofirst 300 suffered a serious blow too and closed with losses of 0.7% to 996.85 basis points, which is the lowest level for 2012.

Tags: EconomyMarketsAuctionInterest rateShort term bondsJunckerNouriel Roubini
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