Bonds to woo big investors

The door is now wide open for the entry of quality and long-term investors, who manage trillions of dollars, into the Greek bonds market: Bloomberg Index Services, a global provider of government bond indices, has become the first to include Greek bonds among the elite of the debt markets, announcing that 17 Greek bonds worth 73 billion euros are to be included in its index series as of January.

In the coming days, similar announcements are expected from other providers, such as S&P Dow Jones (iBoxx indices), the FTSE and JPMorgan Chase.

It was the upgrade of Greece by Fitch that led to this development, as most international bond indices require an investment grade rating from at least two of the "big three" rating agencies - S&P, Moody's and Fitch - or an average investment grade rating. Of course, there are also indexes with stricter criteria, which require a...