Financial markets

Trading on the forex market has been slowly gaining popularity over the last 5 years. You can discern the increasing popularity by the fact that forex traders have snowballed up to 10 million over the last five years.

The significant increase in deposits over the last few months has provided the local credit system with a strong injection of liquidity, as household and corporate deposits had reached 168.4 billion euros by the end of the year's first half against 156.1 billion euros a year earlier.

A strong bond market rally today followed the government's announcement of a complete lifting of capital controls which were instituted in June, 2015.

The yield on the ten-year bond dropped to 1.83%, a 12 basis-point drop, or 6.45 percent as compared to Monday's closing.

It should be noted that the return on the 10-year bond has dropped by approximately 15 basis points.

The Koutsolioutsos family, the main (but not majority) owners of jewelry and fashion accessories company Folli Follie, want to use the September 10 company shareholders' meeting to absolve them of any responsibility for the financial collapse of the company.

Greece's biggest telecoms operator OTE posted a 1.7 percent rise in second-quarter core profit on Thursday as a recovery in its home market helped offset poor performance at its Romanian operations.

The outlook for Greek manufacturing has improved, against a slowdown expected in the rest of the eurozone, Markit reported on Thursday.
The survey company's Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) climbed to 54.6 points in July from 52.4 points in June to record a new three-month high.

Italian bioplastics company Bio-On on Wednesday denied allegations of accounting irregularities by US hedge fund Quintessential Capital Management, saying it was considering legal action against the fund.

Romania's mandatory private pension funds had assets of over 55.15 billion lei on 30 June 2019, up 26.12 percent against the level recorded in the similar month of last year, according to data with the Financial Oversight Authority (ASF). Government bonds made up the largest share of the assets, namely 32.24 billion lei and a 58.46 percent share.

Titan Cement announced on Thursday that its public offering to shareholders has been successful, reaching 93 percent of common shares and 92.3 percent of preference shares, with the Athens-listed company beginning its parallel trading at the Euronext market in Brussels from Tuesday, July 23.

Greece's first post-election bond issue fetched 2.5 billion euros on Tuesday, securing a yield of 1.9 percent and a strong interest by long-term investors, according to the Greek national news agency AMNA.