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Greek spread of government securities with 10 years maturity reached a record 990 basis points and stopped a breath away from the psychological value of 1000 bps. The messages of optimism the government and the representatives of the supervising Troika - the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank - sent to investors that Greece will cope apparently are not sufficiently convincing. The deep economic recession, the famous Greek resistance against reforms and social conflicts raging in the country sent to the international community other signals that are obviously easier to believe.

"Greece has quite a track record of default despite the bailout it received from the Torika – the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank. That is certainly something we may see in the future," said the Harvard Professor Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist of the IMF, at a financial forum in Oslo. "We have Ireland, Portugal and Greece, people are worried about Spain. The debt problems across the periphery countries in Europe are really quite profound; the most likely scenario is that we are going to see a few of the countries end up restructuring their debt," said the famous financier.

At least two of the three major international rating agencies - Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch - said that they will revise in January their estimates of the credit rating of Greece with the intention to decrease it. The flow of alarming economic news from the country continues. The Athens Stock Exchange announced that it has lost 141 billion euros at capitalization level only within three years from 2007, just before the breaking of the world financial crisis, to now. Over 29 billion euros of the Stock Exchange capitalization vanished only in 2010. The Stock Exchange capitalization to GDP ratio is also at record low levels despite the decline in Greece’s GDP. Currently it is 25 per cent while on the European markets this percentage is around 70.

Analysts explain the Athens Stock Exchange capitalization decline with the massive supply of Greek securities by foreign investors, which is estimated at around 2 billion euros. The Greek companies of the most stable capitalization are Coca-Cola 3E, followed by the National Bank of Greece, the State lottery OPAP, the national telecom OTE and national electric company. Greek banks’ shares have fallen so much that local media talk about their ‘depreciation’.

Meanwhile, the Greek government shook a finger at the London investment company Capital Spreads for no other reason ... but for the humorous ad in the London Underground. "Greek government bonds plummet as threat of default increases. Do you:," asks the ad, and gives two possible options: "a) Realise the only Bond you’re interested in is James or b) Continue to short the Euro," says the ad of the company that is known mostly for its online bets. According to a Greek government source, the government examines the possibility to sue Capital Spreads.