National Bank of Greece (NBG) Stock Declining Today as Snap Election Looms

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of the National Bank of Greece are falling by 9.34% to $1.79 at the start of trading this morning, as Greek politicians failed to elect a new president in a vote held on Monday. The country's Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, backed presidential candidate Stavros Dimas, but Dimas failed to secure enough votes which will result in a snap election in early 2015, CNBC.com reports. After the results of the vote were announced Samaras said he will request parliament dissolve on Tuesday and that the snap election will be held on January 25. Exclusive Report: Jim Cramer's Best Stocks For 2015 STOCKS TO BUY: TheStreet Quant Ratings has identified a handful of stocks that can potentially TRIPLE in the next 12 months. Learn more. The prime minister's political party is falling behind the Syriza party in opinion polls, CNBC.com added. There are concerns that if the popular anti-austerity party is elected in January, Greece's international bailout will be placed in danger. The Syriza party has vowed to get rid of Greece's austerity policies if elected. These less than popular cost cutting measures were a condition of the country's bailouts, which are worth $296 billion, CNBC.com said. "Investors are concerned that... it is highly likely that anti-austerity party will become the ruler of the country and this will be a major threat for the country's remarkable progress which is running a current account surplus now," Naeem Aslam, the chief market analyst at Ava Trade, told CNBC.com. Following the results of the vote Greece's main stock market fell 11%. Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates NATIONAL BANK OF GREECE as a Sell with a ratings score of D. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation: "We rate NATIONAL BANK OF GREECE (NBG) a SELL. This is driven by a number of negative factors, which we believe should have a greater impact than any strengths, and could make it more difficult for investors to achieve positive results compared to most of the stocks we cover. Among the areas we feel are negative, one of the most important has been a generally disappointing historical performance in the stock itself." Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows: NBG's stock share price has done very poorly compared to where it was a year ago: Despite any rallies, the net result is that it is down by 65.18%, which is also worse that the performance of the S&P 500 Index. Investors have so far failed to pay much attention to the earnings improvements the company has managed to achieve over the last quarter. Naturally, the overall market trend is bound to be a significant factor. However, in one sense, the stock's sharp decline last year is a positive for future investors, making it cheaper (in proportion to its earnings over the past year) than most other stocks in its industry. But due to other concerns, we feel the stock is still not a good buy right now. The company, on the basis of net income growth from the same quarter one year ago, has significantly underperformed compared to the Commercial Banks industry average, but is greater than that of the S&P 500. The net income increased by 9.8% when compared to the same quarter one year prior, going from -$92.93 million to -$83.82 million. The revenue fell significantly faster than the industry average of 5.6%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues fell by 30.3%. The declining revenue has not hurt the company's bottom line, with increasing earnings per share. NATIONAL BANK OF GREECE reported significant earnings per share improvement in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. The company has demonstrated a pattern of positive earnings per share growth over the past two years. However, we anticipate underperformance relative to this pattern in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, NATIONAL BANK OF GREECE turned its bottom line around by earning $1.98 versus -$27.80 in the prior year. For the next year, the market is expecting a contraction of 92.9% in earnings ($0.14 versus $1.98). 36.50% is the gross profit margin for NATIONAL BANK OF GREECE which we consider to be strong. It has increased from the same quarter the previous year. Regardless of the strong results of the gross profit margin, the net profit margin of -5.49% is in-line with the industry average. You can view the full analysis from the report here: NBG Ratings Report STOCKS TO BUY: TheStreet Quant Ratings has identified a handful of stocks that can potentially TRIPLE in the next 12 months. Learn more. Click to view a price quote on NBG. Click to research the Banking industry.

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