Greek bond market closing report

The yield spread between the 10-year Greek and German benchmark bonds eased to 916 basis points in the Greek electronic secondary bond market on Wednesday, from 937 bps on Tuesday, with the Greek bond yielding 12.24 pct and the German Bund 3.08 pct. Yields however remain at persistently high levels with Petros Christodoulou, general manager of the Public Debt Management Organization, in comments made to the press, saying that “borrowing was forbidden for the Greek state at current levels”.

He said that Greece did not need to raise money from capital markets this year and stressed that yields should fall around 5-5.5 pct before Greece returned to markets.

Turnover in the market was a low 61 million euros, of which 31 million were buy orders and the remaining 30 million euros were sell orders. The 10-year benchmark bond was the most heavily traded security with a turnover of 7.0 million euros.

In interbank markets, interest rates were largely unchanged. The 12-month rate was 1.91 pct, the six-month rate 1.47 pct, the three-month 1.17 pct and the one-month rate 0.88 pct.

 

Foreign Exchange rates – Thursday

 

Reference buying rates per euro released by the European Central Bank:
U.S. dollar	1.406
Pound sterling	0.874
Danish kroner	7.518
Swedish kroner	9.044
Japanese yen	113.33
Swiss franc	1.285
Norwegian kroner	7.932
Canadian dollar	1.385
Australian dollar	1.417