Greek Bond Launch: Official…..VENIZELOS MUCH TOO FAT For Role Of Wily E Coyote

Benny the Pasokist in Dead fat bounce

By John Ward: Greece has returned to the bond markets! The EC has been proved right! Antonis Samaras is vindicated! And what’s more, Foreign Deputy World Class Windsock Leader & Top Sprout Licker Evangelisto Veryzealous had this to say:

“The success shows that the Greek debt is sustainable, otherwise traders would not buy the bond”

Er, hang on a mo there, Benny: didn’t they also rush to buy all the other shit you issued prior to 2008?

And hang on another minute there, Three Lunches: isn’t the Bond under English Law…which means that, default or not, YOU HAVE TO PAY UP?

Syriza leader Alexis Shipwreck commented, “The markets will want their pound of flesh, and when it comes to Benny, there’s plenty to go at”.

A few other sustainability facts in relation to this issue:

1. The bonds were launched at a 4.95% yield. But even with the English Law cast-iron guarantee of repayment, the yield on Greek 10-year bonds climbed five basis points, or 0.05 percentage points, to 5.94% at 2:24 p.m. Athens time today (Thursday)

2. Alan Wilde, head of fixed income at Baring Asset Management, said: “I still can’t see why anyone would want to own Greek debt. Greece comes into the category where it renegotiated but did not repay the debt that it owed.”

3. Salman Ahmed, fixed-income strategist at Lombard Odier Investment Managers, said the sale was more a political move than an economic one.

4. The bond sale raised € 3bn.Greece has a total debt of € 329bn….and still rising. To see this for yourself, go to the Greek Debt clock site, and watch it happening in real time.

5. Non-performing loans have leapt to a staggering 31.7% of total Greek internal lending, according to data provided by the Bank of Greece.

6. Greece has fallen deeper into deflation. Prices fell by another 0.2% in March compared with February, driving the annual consumer prices index down to -1.3% – according to Elstat.
I think this is one of those rare occasions when sanity and cynicism seem to go hand in hand on the buyer side of the commercial equation….but the other way round on the seller side.
The normal, cynical folks here are the Bond investors. The insanely cynical folks are the sellers: that is, the Greek Coalition, and the Brussels-am-Berlin Pact of Fantasy.

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