The Athens Stock Exchange expands losses on Friday in the aftermath of the resignation of the Greek prime minister and his government and the upcoming snap early elections in Greece.

The political developments succeed one another with the President of the Greek Parliament Zoe Konstantopoulou expressing her irritation about the fact that the parliament was not officially informed, criticizing for this, both the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister.

President of New Democracy, Evangelos Meimarakis, who received a mandate earlier today to form a government by the President of the Hellenic Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos, expressed during his meeting with the House President his intention to discuss the government's setting under the existing composition at the plenary.

Meimarakis requested by Zoe Konstantopoulou to be informed about the parliamentary power of the parties after the creation of the new party by Panagiotis Lafazanis.

Konstantopoulou expressed her discontent about the exploratory mandate process, talking about institutional impropriety. “I want to tell you that the political and civic responsibility is expressed, neither with leaks nor with Non paper”, she said.

The political developments in Greece dominate the international press.
According to Bloomberg, “as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras moved to force an early election to shore up his position”.

“Elected in January on an anti-austerity platform, Tsipras faced a revolt from within his own party after pushing through the kind of tax increases and spending curbs that he had vociferously opposed while in opposition”, Bloomberg reported.

“Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras resigned in a bid to trigger snap elections and return to power stronger, plunging his country into weeks of political paralysis just as it seemed to have scraped through a summer of fraught bailout talks and near-bankruptcy”, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The Financial Times warn that the pre-electoral campaign could delay the implementation of the reforms agreed with the creditors in the country’s last bailout package.

The European Commission was informed of the announcement on elections as there were repeated telephone conversations of Alexis Tsipras and the President of the Hellenic Republic with Juncker, therefore, the decision was not a surprise.

As stated by the Commission representative, there is no concern about the implementation of the Greek rescue program following the resignation of the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras yesterday, saying that the reforms were supported by the Greek parliament.

We are not concerned about the implementation of the program, said the European Commission spokesman.

The general index declines 2.57% to 634.61 points while FTSE is at 187.66 points and at -2.94%.

The banking sector is losing 1.74%. Alpha Bank is down 1.01%, Eurobank falls 2.27%, Piraeus Bank drops 1.04% and National Bank is at-2.61%.

The Bank of Cyprus stock on the CSE surges 1.06% to €0.191 while in Athens it is at €0.191 and at +1.06%.

The daily turnover stands at €18.7mn.

“The Greek prime minister Tsipras’s move to step down and call snap early elections on 20 September could elevate programme implementation concerns and potentially puts future official sector disbursements at risk,” said Moody’s.

Meanwhile, the yield on the ten-year Greek bond is at 9.48% up from 9.37% yesterday while that on the four-year bond is at 11.66% from 10.90%.

In Europe, the stock markets are in the red, affected by data on the manufacturing industry in China. PMI index of Caixin for the manufacturing industry in China hit a 77-month low in August to 47.1 points from 47.8 points in July.

The German Dax is down 1.36%, the French CAC 40 loses 1.24% and the English FTSE 100 falls 1.21%.

In the CSE, the general index is recording gains of 0.33% to 78.76 points while FTSE is at 45.33 points and at +0.38%.