Daily Management Review

Greek Markets Plunge Amidst Hushed Talks for Debt Bailout


08/03/2015




Greek Markets Plunge Amidst Hushed Talks for Debt Bailout
Amidst hushed talks between the Greek authorities and the menders, the Greece stock market plunged nearly 23 percent on Monday.

The stock markets had opened after a five-week. the plunge was triggered by fears that the debt struck country would not be able to secure a third bail out of its debts and that it is about to be dumped from the euro zone.

It may be recalled that there were extensive reports last week about the International Monetary Fund indicating that a third time bail out of Greece was not possible unless the country implemented the economic reforms.

The present President  of the country is struggling to cope up with the opposition form within his party against the accession to the demands of stringent austerity and increased taxes to secure the debt relief and IMF bailout.  The IMF, acting on an assessment of the issues had reported ly asked its representatives attending Monday’s meeting, not to make any immediate commitments for the bail out.

This insecurity reflected in the main Athens stock index ATG. The ATG index had barely been into a few minutes of trading when the index plunged in its worst ever one-day performance.
The worst hot were the banking shares that comprise of about 20 percent of the index.

The country's largest commercial bank - National Bank of Greece, had fallen 30 percent, the daily volatility limit. The overall banking index. FTATBNK had reached its limit of downfall which is 30 percent
The nearest blue chip futures contract expiring in August ATFQ5 traded down 20.5 percent, adding to losses of 15.2 percent at the open.

The investment adviser Theodore Mouratidis said that most of the selling pressure was recorded in the bank shares which have more than 100 million Euros worth of unexecuted selling orders.

“There may be some more slide in store for (Tuesday) unless buyers emerge later in the session,” Mouratidis said.

As part of capital controls imposed to stem a debilitating outflow of Euros, trading on the Athens bourse was suspended in late June. There as fear the outflow of Euros was s bearded a significant threat to the collapse Greece's banks and hurl the indebted country out of the euro zone.

In a last minute ditch, the Greek authorities has agreed to impose strict norms for economic revival and reforms as proposed by the European Union partners in exchange for a bailout plan.

The markets also reacted to rumours that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece may need to call a snap election in order to obtain afresh memorandum from the people as well to satisfy his party members, many of whom are opposed to the deal struck with the creditors.

Avgi newspaper reported that the Greek authorities are looking to secure 24 billion Euros or $26.37 billion during the negotiations and the subsequent bailout package, meeting of which would be held this month bailout aid from international lenders in August.

The Greek banks would be the primary beneficiaries of this package as they are critically short of cash and the amount would be around 10 billion euros. An emergency bridge loan worth 7.16 billion would also be repaid with the bail-out come. The country would also utilize 3.2 billion euros to repay Greek bonds held by the European Central Bank and others.

( Source: www.reuters .com)