Financial markets

The continuation of yield chasing by investors has led to record demand for government bond issues in the eurozone.

The yield on the Greek benchmark 10-year bond posted the biggest decline in the eurozone this year, amounting to 290 basis points (2.9 percentage points) according to a Reuters report on Monday.
The Italian equivalent decreased 137 bps, while those of Germany, the Netherlands and France are expected to end the year with drops of between 45 and 60 bps.

The Greek startups ecosystem saw just one corporate acquisition this year, from two in 2018, according to a report by Found.ation.

Online radio station manager Radiojar was bought out in March by US company iHeartMedia.

On the contrary in the years 2016 and 2017 a total of 10 startups had been acquired, such as Beat (Taxibeat), Quizdom and Innoetics.

Greek securities have been among the world's top performers in 2019, according to a report by the Financial Times.

The London-based publication noted that this year has offered glorious opportunities for investors, from Greek bonds to the spiraling of the British pound.

Despite the strong rally by Greek stocks since the start of the year, HSBC estimates the Athens Exchange still has great potential to climb further. On Tuesday the British bank upgraded its recommendation for the local market from neutral to overweight, stressing that Greece's macroeconomic prospects have improved considerably after the elections, with a positive impact on stocks.

Greece plans to sell billions of euros of social security contributions owed to its pension fund to private investors to get cash upfront and facilitate recovering other receivables, senior government officials told Reuters on Thursday.

The milestone reached by Greek bonds on Thursday, with their yields dropping below those of Italy, appeared to scare traders away, with some firms warning that it was too much.

Mali expects that this will be realized by the end of the year.
"We are negotiating intensively and I think we will be admitted to Euroclear in the next couple of weeks, i.e. by the end of the year, which will further increase the demand for our securities", Mali told reporters.

Expectations are growing that credit rating upgrades will be speeded up in the next few weeks, following the European Commission's approval of the Hercules plan to reduce bad loans, the government's pro-business reforms and the improvement of the Greek debt's profile following the strong bond rally.

A growing number of private equity firms are taking advantage of Europe's buoyant bond market to extract money from companies they hold by loading them with debt, prompting some investors to warn the fixed income rally is nearing its peak.