Greek bonds have not traded on electronic platform for a month
Investors have not traded Greek government bonds on the HDAT electronic platform for almost a month as the country struggles to reach a vital cash-for-reform deal with its creditors, data from Greece’s central bank showed on Friday.
The data shows not a single bond has been traded since May 20, in a sign investors have moved to the sidelines, lacking the appetite to buy what is currently considered one of the riskiest assets in the world.
In what is widely billed as another last-ditch attempt to break the deadlock, euro zone leaders will hold an emergency summit on Monday evening on Greece, where bank withdrawals have accelerated and government revenues slumped.
In May and April only 4 million euros worth of bonds have been traded, compared with 63 million euros in March, 241 million in February and 560 million in January.
About 10.4 billion euros were traded in 2014.
Greek government bonds trade mostly over the counter, but the data from HDAT is a proxy for total volumes, traders say.
The last barren period of this length on HDAT was just before Greece’s debt restructuring in March 2012. From September 2011 to February 2012 only 7 million euros of Greek bonds changed hands.
[Reuters]
