Tuesday, February 3, 2015

κοιτάξει έξω παρακάτω (That's Greek for 'Look Out Below'!)

To say that Greek banks are underperforming is more than a gross understatement of fact.  The visual representation of that performance, however, is really quite stunning.  Here, we look at each of the four banks primarily responsible for the purchase of Greek government debt (dependent, of course, on continued loans from the ECB to do so).

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Alpha Bank (relative to MSCI All Country World Index)
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Eurobank Ergasias (relative to MSCI All Country World Index)
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National Bank of Greece (relative to MSCI All Country World Index)
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Piraeus Bank (relative to MSCI All Country World Index)
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Those who are familiar with our relative strength point-and-figure charts will note that these look slightly odd.  That is because the extraordinary volatility in their relative performance forced us to zoom out to just a quarter of our normal view in order to see the entire chart history (1008 trading days).  And, yes, you are remembering correctly that one of the benefits of using this methodology is that our choice of a three-box reversal helps dampen volatility.