ASE stocks reminiscent of 20 years ago

When European banks were sold today as if there’s no tomorrow due to the debt crisis - and Mr. Josef Achermann’s warning about European banks’ weaknesses facing a haircut - what could Greek banks do when they have been held hostage of the debt itself for 23 months?

They simply confirmed the uncertainty of the Greek government bond exchange program, while many continue to anticipate the use of the Financial Support Fund. In other words, Athens is “consuming” its own flesh, leading professionals to despair.

Already, well-known financial companies are being closed down since commissions revenue is 200 euros while costs exceed 2000 due to lack of operations.

In Europe, however, the drop in banking shares clearly indicates that capital increases are urgently needed either due to issues because of losses, or due to lack of funds which can be lent to the economy.

The market lost 3.14%, reaching 863.90 points, while all European stock markets suffered because of banking shares. At the same time, the Greek spread rose to over 1740 points, while the CDS flew to over 2300 points. The performance of the one-year bond exceeded 60%!!!

The borrowing costs of the rest of the region were also increased, even though the ECB bought 14 billion in bonds last week. The dollar/euro conversion rate is at 1.41, which directly reflects Europe’s inability to find a convincing solution to the debt crisis.

Fall without a turnover or sellers.

Since the beginning of the session, and up until an hour later, one could discern that the market was on its way to new lows (862 points). For yet another session, the deal’s shares were led to a new low, with Alpha Bank losing 10% and Eurobank losing 9.86%.

There was a new preservation effort for the National bank, which lost 5.72% and reached 2.80 euros.

Marfin Popular and MIG’s decline was over 6% and 8% respectively, with losses in both TT and PiraeusBank.

Towards the end of the session, some markets contributed to the rise of OPAP shares (a 3.91% gain), Jumbo (a 0.39% increase) and Greek oil gains at 0.88%. Total transactions reached 37 million.