Jefferies deems Greek shares “modestly bullish”

Jefferies now appears as “modestly bullish” (moderate buyer) from “bullish” (buyer) of Greek shares, noting that the ATHEX has not yet exceeded pre-pandemic levels, as the latter will leave some permanent wounds in the economy and businesses , but also potential output, affecting growth, at a time when uptrends in corporate profits are sluggish and operating leverage is limited.

The Covid-19 crisis has undermined the hard work for improving Greece’s fiscal year, and despite the good news about rising bank deposits and Recovery Fund flows (7.5 billion this year), there is a risk that the forecast for GDP growth of 5% per year in the period 2021-22 might be quite optimistic. However, the market anticipates a better performance of GDP in 2022 (5.3%) than in 2021 (3.45%), although the distribution of vaccines is slow.

The Greek stock market is dominated by companies that are mainly exposed to domestic activities and which have survived the deep recession of the debt crisis, but are less dependent on the economic cycle and world trade, compared to their European counterparts. Among the “survivors” of the Greek crisis, Jefferies analysts point to shares that “survived” like Jumbo, HELEX, OTE and Motor Oil, for which, however, there is no recommendation.

On the contrary, there is a “purchase” recommendation for the shares of Greek companies listed on international stock exchanges and in particular for the securities of Capital Product, Coca Cola HBC, Danaos, Gaslog Partners, Starbulk, Stealthgas and Tsakos Energy.