Cheering Greek Banks (NBG)

National Bank of Greece (NYSE: NBG) is having one of the rare great days.  After the nation of Greece has been a thorn in the side of the Euro, even more than the rest of the PIIGS nations, Greek stocks were up over 4% in general on hopes that Greek defaults would be avoided.  If one sector will do well in avoiding an outright default it is the Greek banking stocks.  Guess which sector holds much sovereign debt issued by Greece… it is the Greek banks.

Greece has systematic woes that are far above and beyond just today.  The country can reach accords all it wants, but each new political cycle (or debt maturity cycle) will likely bring up a push and pull between the population and the governing members who have to live up to the European Union expectations.  For now, investors do not care.  NBG shares are seeing a surge of 11.2% to $2.70 in its ADRs in New York and trading volume is already about 40% above normal now that we have hit 1 million shares traded today.

NBG’s adjusted 52-week range is $1.64 to $11.85.