Stock market crashes

Eurozone finance ministers will decide on Thursday how much cash and debt relief to give Greece in return for compliance with economic reforms, to ensure Athens can finance itself after it exits its bailout in August.

Germany's central bank said on June 15 that it had sharply downgraded its economic growth forecast for this year but grew more optimistic for 2019, saying the present boom should continue although the danger of a trade war is rising.

Greece's economy has grown for a fifth consecutive quarter, keeping the country's recovery on target as eight years of international bailout programs are due to end in August.

The Greek Statistical Authority said Monday that the economy 2.3 percent in January-March from a year earlier, and 0.8 percent from the previous quarter.

Eurobank, Greece's third-largest lender by assets, reported lower net profit in January-to-March compared to the previous quarter as a decline in interest income and commission fees offset reduced provisions for impaired loans.

MarketWatch - As worries about Italy and Spain's governance whack European markets on Tuesday, George Soros is adding to the downbeat mood.

The 87-year-old Hungarian-American, known as the investor who broke the Bank of England, has offered the following bleak assessment in a speech in Paris to the European Council on Foreign Relations

The specter of a financial crisis came back to haunt Italy on May 29, as its markets plunged on fears that the eurozone's third-largest economy is heading toward another election that could shape up to be a referendum on whether to stay in the common currency.

Greece wants to tap bond markets twice before year-end and may sell its first 10-year issue in a decade, in an effort to convince investors that it does not need any more external aid after its bailout program ends in August, sources said.

The improvement observed in Greek bond prices last month convinced the government to start making plans for its next market outing to take advantage of the more favorable conditions for the country and move a step closer to the much prophesied "clean exit" from the bailout program in August.

The benchmark 10-year Greek sovereign bond yield continued its ascent on Thursday to reach 4 percent, adding seven basis points since Wednesday's closing.

As Athens ponders its return to the markets ahead of the country's emergence from the bailout program in 15 weeks' time, the 10-year yield has come off the 3.90 percent low point reached late last week.

According to a research of the German IMC Institute, the possibilities to begin a global financial crisis very soon has sharply increased and is now 32.4 percent.

IMK warns that there will be a major change in central bank policy, which could lead to a severe deterioration of the European economy and even to a new recession.