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Tuesday, August 4, 2015

This investor would buy 'anything and everything Greek' if it left the euro (GREK)

Bloomberg News found an investor that would be "wildly bullish" on Greece if it left the euro.  Daniel Yu, who runs the firm Gotham City Research, which usually issues reports on companies it thinks investors should bet against, said he would be "wildly bullish" on Greece in the case of a "Grexit," or a Greek exit from the euro monetary union.  Yu told Bloomberg that he would look at "anything and everything Greek," if Greece left the euro. He added that a Grexit, "basically means they're not going to pay their debt, and that's a good thing. Once you have debt relief, there are so many positive things that can happen to an economy." Yu, in a way, is making a similar argument to what economists like Paul Krugman advanced when he wrote that if he were voting in Greece's referendum, he would've voted against accepting a bailout. What Greece needs, under this view, is a fresh start and a chance to make it on its own. The irony, of course, is that Greece did vote "No," and then accepted a new bailout package — with even harsher terms — anyway. And so while Yu, like Krugman, might look at Greece's situation from a purely economic or financial standpoint and think that a Grexit and Greek default is what's best, the political reality seems far removed from this scenario. On Tuesday, a Greek official told Reuters that Greece expects to have a new bailout in place in 2 weeks. This would be more of the same for Greece: austerity, current account surpluses, and economic reforms as dictated by the Troika. And while the July economic data out of Greece was shockingly bad, the rest of Europe seems to have shaken off the Greek drama and continued expanding, albeit at a modest pace.  But given how things in Europe looked a few years ago during the height of the European debt crisis, politicians in Europe — and Greece, for that matter — seem content, if not determined, to stay the course. SEE ALSO: Greece's stunningly terrible economic numbers were great news for the rest of Europe Join the conversation about this story »


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT uk.businessinsider.com