Troubled Trading In NBG (NBG)

National Bank of Greece S.A. (NYSE: NBG) is supposed to be a beneficiary of the Greek debt settlement, at least of some sort.  How this plays out with losses in Greek bonds at the bank level may be months away before the dust settles completely.  So, if the deal is still good we wonder about the stock action.  NBG shares have more than doubled from the January lows. Still, they are down by more than two-thirds on a reverse split-adjusted basis over the last year.  After rising last week we have seen a staircase down each day until Thursday with shares down ‘only’ $0.01 at $3.12.

Last Friday’s close was $3.86 in anticipation that a deal would be reached.  The ADRs closed at $3.56 on Tuesday in New York, followed by $3.13 on Wednesday.  Whether or not this is that last day down is unknown but as far as New York trading is concerned this would be the lowest close going all the way back to January 26.  Again, just because this has been a proxy does not mean that it will be an ultimate winner.  Presumably, the ‘coming adjustments’ to Greece may be a multi-year problem ahead.

Maybe this is just a sell-the-news profit taking round.  Stocks which are the worst performers on bad news tend to be the best performers on the anticipation of good news or even less-bad news.  Still, this trading action probably doesn’t leave too much hope for investors if it does not turn around soon.  Maybe it is just the chart action not holding up as the stockcharts.com chart below would suggest with resistance coming in before the 200-day moving average.

Maybe the thought that Greeks will try to break the deal in only a few months have more merit than many would like to believe.

JON C. OGG