Not a day went by in this trading week without Greece being on the front page of the Belgian financial newspapers. Certainly at the beginning of the week the Greek situation was creating merry hell for investors. If you have already had the pleasure of sending a postcard, with a Greek stamp (very often featuring the word Hellas), from one of those beautiful Greek islands, you will know that the word Greece is derived from the Ancient Greek Hellás (Ελλας). The Greek saga finally ‘ended’ on Friday with the Eurogroup giving Greece a four months extension of its bailout, while the Greeks had requested six months. This is a pretty crucial point as this implies that the extension expires before the crucial bond repayments to the ECB in July and August which total EUR 6.7 billion. So it cannot be discounted that the Greek saga will continue at some point around the end of June. 

Although markets traded nervously on the back of the Greek situation equity investors remained positive with a Euro Stoxx 50 index that gained 1.25% this week. Ageas’s shares retraced a little (-1.08%) this week from the fresh share price highs not seen in more than 6.5 years the week before.