Turkey, Italy keep door to Greek bond sale shut

Greece will have to wait at least a bit more before it can access global capital markets on its own again, even after exiting its third rescue programme the day before.

After more than eight years of financial turmoil, the country's Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras said on Tuesday that Greece had managed to bring its 'Odyssey' to a close.

True up to a point perhaps, but if in May it was the uncertainty around the new Italian government which forced Greece to abandon plans for a debt sale, now it would be the currency crisis in Turkey, Reuters reported, citing bankers working with some of Athens's three primary dealers.

"I think we need to see the Turkey situation calm down and the Italy political scene become a bit stable," one of those dealers said.

According to those bankers, the Treasury in Athens would need to offer a premium of between 25 and 40 basis points in order to successfully sell 10-year debt, implying that the new issue would trade at around 5.0%.

As of 1609 BST, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Greek government bond was ten basis points lower at 4.24%.