The stock markets in the United States declined amid fears that Greece is headed towards an exit from the Eurozone. The equity markets were also negatively impacted by the decline in oil prices.
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Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis resigned from his position after voters rejected the terms of the bailout package offered by international creditors. Yanis said his departure would probably help Greece find a solution to its debt crisis.
Some European officials perceived that “No” vote as the complete rejection of debt negotiation with Greece’s international creditors. Germany’s Deputy Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel commented that a new debt negotiation with Greece was “difficult to imagine.”
Greek banks are currently running out of cash. The European Central Bank (ECB) is expected to make a decision whether it would increase its emergency cash support for Greek banks.
[drizzle]Georgios Stathakis, the Economy Minister of Greece said the ECB needs to provide cash support for Greek banks for at lease seven to ten days so that a debt negotiation could happen.
Commenting on Greece’s situation, Bruce Bittles, chief investment strategist at Robert W. Baird &Co told Bloomberg, “After five years, you have to believe a measure of the news from Greece is already built into the market. How many times can you be concerned about the same news? I think it loses its effectiveness over the near term.”
On the other hand, Richard Sichel, chief investment officer at Philadelphia Trust Co commented, “Every couple of hours the [Greece] story gets even bigger and more uncertain along the way. Based on the confusion factor of all this and just trying to sort out what everything means, volatility is definitely to be expected.”
In the United States, investors will focus their attention on corporate earnings for the second quarter. Alcoa is among the companies that would kick off the earnings season this week
U.S. Markets
- Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) – 17,683.58 (-0.26%)
- S&P 500- 2,068.76 (-0.39%)
- NASDAQ- 4,991.94 (-0.34%)
- Russell 2000- 1,246.96 (-0.10%)
European Markets
- EURO STOXX 50 Price EUR- 3,365.20 (-75.56%)
- FTSE 100 Index- 6,535.68 (-0.76%)
- Deutsche Borse AG German Stock Index DAX- 10,89.63 (-1.52%)
Asia-Pacific Markets
- Nikkei 225- 20,112.12 (-2.08%)
- Hong Kong Hang Seng Index- 25,236.28 (-3.18%)
- Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 Index- 5,475.00 (-1.14%)
Stocks in Focus
The stock price of Aetna declined 6.44% to $117.43 per share following its decision to acquire Humana. Today’s decline in the stock price of Aetna was primarily caused by Humana’s reduction of its earnings outlook in the range of $1.60 to $1.65 for the June quarter.
Versartis climbed more than 28% to $18.79 per share, the biggest gainer among the companies listed on NASDAQ today. Versartis is an endocrine-focused biopharmaceutical company. It is focused on developing long-acting recombinant human growth hormone called VRS-317. The company announced that the FDA removed its partial clinical hold on VRS-317.
The stock value of Agile Therapeutics increased more than 12% to $9.84 per share. The pharmaceutical company specializes in women’s health. Its product candidates are designed to provide women with contraceptive options. Agile Therapeutics gained more than 60% of stock value year-to-date. The stock traded as much as $13.19 per share over the past 52-weeks.
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