Govt eyes another bond market foray after expected upgrade by Moody’s in March

Moody’s is expected to close out the most recent cycle of Greece’s credit rating upgrades, as the former – by all accounts — will follow Standard and Poor’s – last January – and Fitch’s upgrade last week.

Moody’s last evaluation came in the summer of 2017, when it raised the country’s rating to a Caa2.

According to a strictly unofficial timetable, the finance ministry expects to again test bond markets after the end of March, which would mark the second foray into sovereign money markets, out of three, planned before the end of the current bailout on Aug. 20, 2018.

Fitch’s latest upgrade, from -B to B, generated a finance ministry statement referring to “…a strong indication of the continuous upward course (of the Greek economy) and the constant restoration of investors’ confidence.”

The improved ratings for Greece’s creditworthiness come after some two years of repeated downgrades, to “junk level”, in fact, in the wake of the assumption of power by a leftist-rightist coalition government in January 2015.