Chart of the week: Greece – a better credit risk than the US?

Sometimes "something you hadn't been following... is highlighted to you andyou stagger back in shock", says Albert Edwards of Societe Generale. The yield on the five-year Greek government bond has slipped beneath its US counterpart. For a country that has borrowed too much since its foundation to be considered a better credit risk than Uncle Sam seems absurd. But it is a snapshot of how impressed investors are with Greece's recovery from the debt crisis, says Matthew A Winkler on Bloomberg.

Growth is outpacing the eurozone average and the budget deficit, 15% in 2009, has become a surplus. Investors have piled back into Greek bonds, sending yields to near-record lows. The ten-year yield reached 49% in 2012.

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