Merrill Lynch sees value in Greek bank chips
Bank of America Corporation’s Merrill Lynch unit said in a report issued on Tuesday that the recent decline in share prices at the Greek bourse offers value as Greek banking recovers and that there is no prospect for an early general election before March 2015, when the Parliament’s likely inability to elect a new president to replace Karolos Papoulias will lead to a parliamentary poll.
BoA also upgraded its rating for Greek banks, leading to stock gains for some of the main lenders: Piraeus Bank SA jumped 6.5 percent to 1.48 euros after BoA its rating to buy from underperform, or sell.
The Greek lender had lost 33 percent from March 4 to Monday.
Alpha Bank AE advanced 5 percent to 0.63 euros as the brokerage raised its rating to buy from neutral.
That followed a 20 percent drop since since March 20 through Monday.
[Bloomberg]
