(Bloomberg) -- Greek government bonds rose, with three-year yields falling the most in three weeks, after Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis backed away from a demand for a debt writedown.
Negotiations between euro-area officials and Greece’s newly-elected government remained tense, and gains made on Tuesday that were the biggest since 2012 were pared in the remainder of the week. Greece’s credit rating was cut by Standard & Poor’s after markets closed on Friday and an emergency meeting of euro-area finance chiefs is scheduled for Feb. 11 in Brussels.
“Nobody knows where this is going,” said Peter Schaffrik, London-based head of European rates strategy at Royal Bank of Canada. “We’ve had a lot of news but we haven’t really gone anywhere.” Compared with the end of last week, “the market is slightly less nervous, particularly because the issue of a unilateral default in Greece is off the table.”
Greek three-year note yields fell 115 basis points, or 1.15 percentage points, to 18 percent at the 5 p.m. London close on Friday. The 3.375 percent security due July 2017 climbed 1.835, or 18.35 euros per 1,000-euro ($1,132) face amount, to 73.02. The 10-year rate dropped 1.07 percentage points since Jan. 30 to 10.11 percent.
Greek bonds were whipsawed through the week as Varoufakis and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras toured Europe to try to cut a new deal on repaying a rescue package agreed to in 2012. Markets surged on Tuesday, following a meeting between the finance minister and bankers at which he outlined plans to swap some debt for new securities, rather than reducing the amount owed.
No comments:
Post a Comment