Greek bourse to reopen on Wednesday or Thursday: Regulator

The Athens Stock Exchange has been shut since June 29, after the govt closed its banks and imposed capital controls to prevent them from collapsing in the face of mass withdrawals

The Greek stock market will reopen on Wednesday or Thursday after a month-long shutdown but with restrictions on trading by local investors at the request of the European Central Bank, the Greek securities regulator chairman told Reuters on Tuesday. The Athens Stock Exchange has been shut since June 29, after the government closed its banks and imposed capital controls to prevent them from collapsing in the face of mass withdrawals. Greece sent a first proposal to the ECB last week to reopen the stock market as soon as possible because it risked its place in global securities indexes if it remained closed for too long.

But the process was delayed because the ECB wanted assurances that Greek investors would not pull money out of banks to convert them to shares or bonds, putting a further strain on the country's struggling lenders which depend on ECB's emergency funding (ELA) to remain afloat. On Tuesday, Greece gained the European Central Bank's approval to reopen its stock market with no restrictions for foreign investors but with limitations for the local ones.

"The commission will convene tomorrow morning to decide if the Athens Stock Exchange will reopen on Wednesday or Thursday," the chairman of Hellenic Capital Market Commission Konstantinos Botopoulos told Reuters. A ministerial decree on the bourse's operations is expected to be issued, opening the way for trading.