With capital controls starting to creep in and with a big peak in debt redemptions looming, as per chart below, Greece is now entering the last stage of pre-default financial acrobatics.
The country bonds yields are now re-tracing previous peaks (more on this here):
And as cash transfers from the local governments to the Central Bank (see link above), plus continued depositors flight are blowing an ever widening hole in Greek balance sheets, the ECB is seriously considering to cut substantially Greek banks access to liquidity. The cut will have to be along the ELA lines (ELA governing rules are available here). Meanwhile, Greek banks' shares are tanking, down some 50% in month and a half.
Here is the end-of-day chart for Greek banks shares index, showing historical low set today
and the opening levels for the same:
All of which has, as a backdrop, pretty ominous (though entirely correct) ECB talk about the options for Greek default.
This is going to be an eventful day or two, folks.
Update 2: Meanwhile in the mondo bizzaro, the ECB is reportedly looking into dual currency regime for Greece. Which sort of makes sense as a transition out of euro area membership, but makes little sense as a tool for retaining Greece in the Euro. Which, in turn, may or may not be an indicator of ECB going the Ifo way. Go figure...
Update 1: A handy chart summing up ECB's 'headache'
And as @Schuldensuehner notes: "Grexit costs rise by the minute" as country Target2 liabilities have reached EUR110.4 billion, "mainly driven by ELA for banks".
Greek debt exposures by countries: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2015/04/19415-greece-in-or-out-ifo-aint-caring.html and across the official sector: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2015/04/15415-official-sector-exposures-to.html.
