Dr. Platon Monokroussos, Chief Market Economist, Deputy General Manager, Eurobank Ergasias S.A
HIGHLIGHTS
WORLD ECONOMIC & MARKET DEVELOPMENTS
GLOBAL MARKETS: Tracking the positive tone in Asia and the Wall Street overnight, the majority of European bourses opened higher today supported by the recent decision of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) to cut banks’ reserve requirements in an effort to boost liquidity to bolster domestic economic growth. In FX markets, the EUR came under renewed pressure weighed down by market uncertainty over the Greek issue
GREECE: According to press reports, a presidential decree was issued y-day obliging public entities, with the exception of social security funds, to transfer all their available cash reserves to a special BoG interest bearing account and the State to be authorized to borrow them via short-term repo transactions./ According to Bank of Greece’s BoP statistics, the current account balance showed a deficit of €929mn in February, c. €200mn wider compared to the shortfall recorded in the same month a year earlier.
CYPRUS: Cypriot government bonds rallied on Monday, in the wake of news that Parliament endorsed over the weekend the new corporate and personal insolvency framework.
SOUTH EASTERN EUROPE
ROMANIA: The government sold at an auction on Monday the planned €200mn worth of June 2021 T-bonds, at an average accepted yield of 2.70%, slightly above 2.60% achieved at a prior auction of similar maturity paper in March.
CESEE MARKETS: Emerging stock markets kicked off the week on a negative footing, largely shrugging off news about economic stimulus measures by the Bank of China. Separately,  CESEE currencies and government bonds were mixed.
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