Developments in the Greek government bond market : October 2010
15/11/2010 - Press Releases
Government bond prices fell and yields rose on international markets in October with the exception of prices at the short end of the yield curve in the US and in some of the so-called peripheral Euro-zone markets.
On the electronic secondary securities market for Greek government bonds (HDAT) prices fell and yields rose during October, in particular on medium-term bonds. The 5-year benchmark bond yield recorded the highest increase, by 103 basis points (bps) to 11.51% at the end of the month, while the 3-year benchmark bond yield rose by 20 bps to 10.65%. In the longer tenors, the 10-year benchmark bond yield rose by 28 bps to 10.76% and the 30-year benchmark bond yield by 32 bps to 8.84%. As a result, the yield curve remained inverted, with the difference between the 30- and the 3-year bond yields reaching -181 bps at the end of October from -193 bps at the end of September. In addition, the spread between the Greek and the German 10-year bond yields reached 820 bps at the end of October, compared with 824 bps at the end of September.
As for government benchmark bond prices, the 3-year bond price fell only marginally to 87.00 at the end of October from 87.05 at the end of September, the 5-year bond price fell to 80.51 from 83.57, the 10-year bond price to 73.58 from 74.80 and the 30-year bond price to 55.85 from 58.00.
Trading volume on HDAT in October increased to EUR 1.94 billion, compared with EUR 1.82 billion in the previous month and EUR 55.42 billion in October 2009. The daily average turnover was EUR 97.1 million in October compared with EUR 82.7 million during the previous month. The most actively traded bond during the month was the 5-year bond maturing on August 20, 2015 with EUR 386 million worth of transactions. Of the 1,655 orders executed on HDAT, 54% were “sell” orders and 46% “buy” orders.