A significant volume of trading was recorded today in the secondary bond market in the first session of the Easter holiday.

However, the market was dominated by sellers, resulting in the prices of most bonds falling slightly.

The possibility that the pace at which the ECB is expected to reduce its interest rates this year will “slow down” has a negative impact on the market.

ECB member and Austrian Central Bank governor Robert Holzman told Germany’s Handelsblatt today that there is no reason for the ECB to move too quickly to cut interest rates.

Besides, last week the governor of the Bank of Greece, Giannis Stournaras, also reduced expectations, estimating that the ECB will proceed within the year with a total of three interest rate reductions, instead of the four that he himself had predicted.

As he pointed out in an interview he granted to Liberal, “after yesterday’s announcements by Eurostat, we analyzed the data on economic growth and inflation in the Eurozone at the Bank of Greece. Based on these data, we now consider the three interest rate cuts in 2024 as the most likely scenario.

The figures announced yesterday by Eurostat on inflation in April, which remained stable at 2.4% as in March, are consistent with the forecasts we made as the ECB in March.

Economic development, however, is developing more positively. The first quarter growth figures were a positive surprise.

If this pace of economic growth continues, then consumer price growth is likely to be marginally higher than our March forecast, but without jeopardizing the 2% target in mid-2025.”

In the secondary bond market today, and more specifically in the Electronic Transaction System (HDAT) of the Bank of Greece, transactions of 148 million euros were recorded, of which 21 million euros related to purchase orders.

The yield on the Greek 10-year bond stood at 3.46% versus 2.45% for the corresponding German bond, resulting in a spread of 1.01%.

In the foreign exchange market, the euro is moving lower against the dollar, with the result that, in the afternoon, the European currency is trading at $1.0748 from the level of $1.0765 that opened the market.