Greece may be hurtling toward default

Baku. 19 June. REPORT.AZ/ Greece may be hurtling toward default, Report informs citing Financial Times. 

None of the government’s bonds traded publicly last week nor derivatives insuring them, according to data from the Bank of Greece and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. Still, two-year Greek notes yield 28.6 percent and credit-default swaps imply about an 80 percent probability of default.

Greece may be unable to meet its commitments to creditors just three years after investors exchanged bonds at a loss as part of the biggest ever debt restructuring. International Monetary Fund Chief Christine Lagarde said Thursday that the IMF will immediately consider Greece in default unless it pays about 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) due on June 30, the same day its euro-area bailout agreement expires.

“We’re in a completely different world to 2012,” said Bill Blain, a strategist at Mint Partners in London. “Any kind of Greek bond is completely illiquid.”

The difference between the yield at which investors are willing to buy and sell Greece’s two-year securities, a measure of the bonds’ liquidity, was about 99 basis points on Friday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That compares with a 0.5 basis-point spread for similar-maturity German notes, the euro region’s benchmark sovereign securities.