National Bank of Greece ADR (fka NBGGY)

[illegal_alias]

Basically, for the current Greek financial "crisis" to get solved. The fundamentals of the bank are essentially sound - it has a positive book value (almost $3) and positive net earnings. The market fear is that if the Greek government goes into default, there will be a run on the banks because depositors will fear that they will lose much of their savings, like what happened in Cyprus in mid-2013. That was a unique situation, but people are fearful.

Any run may cause liquidity problems and the pace of loans may slow, negatively affecting income from operations. Cyprus headed off a major run by closing the banks for about a week, during which they raided deposits in excess of $100K, in return for bank shares.

But, the difference between Greece and Cyprus is that in Cyprus, the banks needed bailing out; in Greece, the government needs bailing out. NBG had some bailout and restructuring from 2012- mid-2014, more along the lines that American banks had with TARP. NBG is also more diversified with operations in other countries that are not hurting fiscally. Cyprus was also a tax-haven for wealthy Russian tax-evaders, making the depositor haircut a little more palpable to some.

So, basically market fears are holding NBG's share price down. If Greek debt gets restructured, I could see NBG going back to $3+ in the second half of the year.