Greek Meltdown Would Cost One Trillion Euros–Institute of International Finance

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

The Institute of International Finance which negotiated the private debt swap for many holders of Greek sovereign debt claims that a “disorderly” default of the southern EU nation would have cause a falling of a number of dominos. Like most forecasts of what might happen in Europe. It is nothing more than a guess

The Institute of International Finance supposes that if the financial aid package to Greece did not come together, capital markets investors would assault the debt of Spain and Italy, driving them toward default as well.

According to Reuters:

“There are some very important and damaging ramifications that would result from a disorderly default on Greek government debt  ,” the IIF said in a document.

“It is difficult to add all these contingent liabilities up with any degree of precision, although it is hard to see how they would not exceed 1 trillion euros.”

The analysis further supposes that

If the Greek deal fell apart, the European Central Bank  would likely suffer substantial losses, the document said, estimating the central bank’s exposure to Greece of 177 billion euros was over 200 percent of its capital base.

Add all of this to other opinions that a Greek default would not matter, and that the nation would simply be asked to leave the euro

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

CBOE Vol: 1,568,143
PSKY Vol: 12,285,993
STX Vol: 7,378,346
ORCL Vol: 26,317,675
DDOG Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ Vol: 4,367,433
CLX Vol: 13,260,523
SYK Vol: 4,519,455
MHK Vol: 1,859,865
AMGN Vol: 3,818,618