Home » Posts tagged 'greek bonds'
Tag Archives: greek bonds
Greek Bonds Tumble As Tsipras Threatens Snap Election
Greek Bonds Tumble As Tsipras Threatens Snap Election
10 year Greek bond yields are spiking this morning (and prices therefore plunging) as trading actvity picks up in the dormant peripheral capital markets. The 2025s are downover 5pts from their last traded price back in late June with yields spiking back up toward 12.5%. This derisking comes after, as we detailed earlier, not only is the Greek economy collapsing but while Brussels is “satisfied with the smooth and constructive cooperation with the Greek authorities and that should allow us to progress as swiftly as possible,” Greek PM Tsipras is threatening snap election as rebellion within ‘his’ party grows.
Volume and actvity picks up in GGBs and the price plunges…
* * *
Put simply, there seems to be a very real possibility that the Syriza rebellion will gather enough steam in the coming weeks to materially derail discussions. This is then a race – Tsipras needs to formalize the new program before Lafazanis (and perhaps Varoufakis) foment enough discontent to make a meaningful push to head off implementation.
And with that, we’ll close with the following sound bites from Kathimerini which sum up the situation quite nicely.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
ECB, Monetarism and a Greek Half-Decade
ECB, Monetarism and a Greek Half-Decade
Greece really should not matter, at all, outside of the tragic plight of the Greeks themselves. You’ll see that message echoed particularly inside the US where the status quo takes a contradictory turn toward reasonableness in order to justify further what isn’t. This is all about asset prices and how they have been so skewed almost everywhere that when one part of that systemic imbibing threatens to pull back the curtain the rest works overdrive to convince that it doesn’t matter.
Just fourteen months ago, then-Prime Minister of Greece, Antonis Samaras, went on Greek television and confidently proclaimed, “Today, Greece took one more decisive step to exit the crisis. Confidence in our country was confirmed by the most objective judge – the markets.” Going further, then-Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos objected to any other interpretation, “The bond issue proves the debt is sustainable, otherwise the markets wouldn’t have bought it.”
Obviously, those were political statements intended to send a political message in that the “objective” market was on the side of that current Greek political makeup and the “austerity” track into which they proclaimed to be amalgamated, inextricably within the euro currency. Under rational expectations theory, of course, the price with which the Greeks floated that bond was believed to be “correct” and thus efficient. The 4.95% yield at the auction, 20 times oversubscribed, certainly seemed to suggest that it was “market clearing” in at least that respect.
The problem with all of that view is apparent right now. The 5-year bond, after having a pretty good week last week with all the false deal rumors, is yielding this morning almost 23%. The losses embedded in that yield and its price were uniquely predictable, which is what is so damning about Greece as it relates to everything outside of the “small country on the Aegean.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Citi, Goldman, ICAP And Others Preparing For Grexit, Again
Citi, Goldman, ICAP And Others Preparing For Grexit, Again
Every couple of years the same identical European drill repeats itself: 1) Greece makes loud noises as it approaches an election, 2) Europe says it couldn’t care what the outcome is and that Greece should stay in the Euro but if it exits it won’t be a disaster, 3) the ECB reminds everyone of the lie that it is not preparing for Plan B (it is) despite holding on to over €100 billion in “credibility-crushing” Greek bonds, 4) panicking Greek banks say the deposit outflow situation is completely under control (adding that “The Bank of Greece along with the European Central Bank are monitoring closely the developments and intervene whenever this is necessary,” which is code word for far more familiar, five-letter word), and meanwhile 5) all non-Greek banks quietly start preparing for the worst case scenario.
So far this time around, we had everything but step “5”. We do now.
According to the WSJ, “banks and other financial institutions in Europe are stress-testing their internal systems and dusting off two-year-old contingency plans for the possibility Greece could leave the region’s monetary union after a key election later this month. Among the firms running through drills are Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and brokerage ICAP PLC, according to people familiar with the matter.”
And soon enough Bloomberg, because who can possibly forget the mysterious appearance of the “XGD Crncy” in June of 2012, only to disappear moments later after a few hurried phone calls from Frankfurt…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
