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Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Shares in Greece's biggest banks have halved in the last two days

Greek stock markets opened again on Monday after a five-week hiatus, and as expected, the Athens index initially went through the floor. Huge economic damage has been done to the country during the bank closure period, as shown by yesterday's manufacturing PMI figure. July saw the most severe industry contraction during the whole of Greece's crisis period, and employers shed jobs at the fastest rate in at least 16 years. The banks themselves, of course, were hit pretty dramatically by the move. They were not only shuttered for weeks, but capital controls have severely restricted their ability to do any international business, and the bailout drama has made European Central Bank support much less certain. Here's what happened to Alpha Bank, one of Greece's biggest, in the first two days of Greek trading: It's the same story at Bank of Piraeus, another of Greece's four major listed banks: Piraeus shares are now worth less than 0.2% of what they were at the peak in 2009, and in terms of market value, it's a shrivelled husk of what is once was. Here's how it looks look over the long term: The four banks (Alpha Bank, Bank of Piraeus, Eurobank and the National Bank of Greece) have seen their share prices fall by half in the last two days overall.Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: You've been rolling your shirtsleeves wrong your entire life


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