Greek crisis: Polls neck and neck as Greece fights to stay in eurozone

The latest polls are saying a majority of Greek people will vote "yes" to accept austerity measures and struggle on with the terms of the country's creditors.

According to a poll by euro2day, 47.1% of Greeks will vote "yes" to austerity measures in the referendum on Sunday (5 July) and 43.2% will vote "no".

Before the closure of the Greek banks a clear majority was pitching towards a "no" vote. According to another poll by the ProRata institute, some 57% were set to reject the austerity package that Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras' government has been facing off.

Greece's finance minister Yannis Varoufakis has confirmed he will step down if the Greek people vote "yes" to accept the austerity terms of the country's creditors.

In a discussion with Bloomberg Varoufakis was asked: "If there is a 'yes' vote on Sunday, you will not be finance minister on Monday night?

"I will not," he answered.

"But I will help whoever is, to push the agreement through there," he added.

Varoufakis reiterated that he does not have the "moral right" to sign a deal that doesn't include debt restructuring.

Meanwhile, betting firm Paddy Power has stopped taking bets on the outcome of the referendum after having paid out "a good chunk of change" to punters who predicted the Greeks will opt to accept austerity measures.

The betting giant said running a book on Greece has been "a real headache" because the goalposts keep shifting.

Amsterdam-based broker DEGIRO said more than half of Greek retail investors say Greece should stay in the EU, and 79% of its clients said if the country stays in the eurozone Tsipras should leave office.

The broker said: "Some 60.79 % of DEGIRO clients in Greece said they would vote yes in the Greek referendum, 29.52% would vote no and the remaining 9.69% are undecided."

Tsipras addressed the Greek population last night, still advocating a "no" vote on Sunday, blaming the creditors for the imposition of capital controls.

After his announcement, the Eurogroup, which held an extraordinary meeting last night, stated that there will be no change to its stance towards the Greek government and its request for a new two-year bailout programme worth €29bn (£21bn, $32bn) until the referendum outcome is known.

In a similar vein, the European Central Bank (ECB) decided to maintain the level of emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) for Greek banks at €89bn with no change to the haircut imposed on the collateral.

Eirini Tsekeridou, fixed income analyst at Julius Baer, said: "The market reaction has been subdued, as most market participants have already heavily discounted any negative news flow out of Greece.

"The only one who changed stance was Moody's which downgraded Greece's government bond rating to Caa3 from Caa2 and placed it on review for further downgrade. As a reason for the downgrade, the Moody's cites lack of official support leading to defaults on privately held debt."

S&P has published a report looking at the credit impact of a potential Grexit on various asset classes. It said while the consequences would be dire for Greece, the eurozone would likely contain the fallout

Real GDP in Greece would fall 20% below the baseline after four years, said S&P.

"Greece-based corporates have reduced their exposure to Greece in recent years: they have reduced risks by diversifying business operations outside of Greece, moving headquarters to other jurisdictions, pooling cash in international money center banks, minimising the amount of local debt exposed to redenomination risk, and managing counterparty credit risk," said S&P.

"However, the now substantially greater probability of a Grexit increases the credit risks of companies we rate. On July 1, 2015, we downgraded Greek companies with country risk exposure to the Greek economy."