Greece's bond exchange was successfully tendered with almost 86% participation among private Greek-law bondholders; coercive collective action clauses raised participation to near 96%, placing Greece in technical default. This wiped out only about one-third of Greece's debt since the ECB, EU and IMF took no write down. With Greece's new bonds trading at 75% of face value, reflecting ongoing investor skepticism, private bondholders had a bad week. Another default seems unlikely in the near term given Greece's (newly) low debt servicing costs: 2% through 2015 and 3% through 2020. More problematic is a yawning budget deficit that will require either more public support from official creditors and/or further austerity, both politically contentious. We think the determination by all parties to work towards an orderly write down of unsustainable sovereign debt laads in the Eurozone reduces systemic risk. This supports our pro-stock, pro-high yield bond, anti long-term Treasury bond positioning. However we do not think investors should expect double-digit stock gains from current levels in 2012.

David Fuller's view It would be nice if we had heard the last of Greece's problems, if only for the sake of that battered little country's sake. Greece faces a tough road ahead but Fullermoney maintains that its crisis has been contained, in contrast to many forecasts to the contrary, and the paragraph above explains why.

For international investors, this means that Greece's problems, while significant for Greek citizens, have been scaled-down to Greek-sized proportions for the global community. In a few years' time they will most likely wonder what all the fuss was about. Time moves on and we face new preoccupations and problems, some of which qualify as 'old friends'.

The spinning plates of high and plateaued long-dated government bond prices have suddenly begun to tumble. This means that bond yields are pushing up out of probable base formations. Suddenly the 'safe haven' is looking more like the bubble that a number of us have been talking about, although the west's various crises have delayed a partial bursting.

The implications of rising yields in government bond markets will not be viewed favourably by central bank and treasury officials, especially in the UK and USA. It would mean higher financing costs at a time of economic underperformance and high unemployment so they may try to delay the inevitability of rising government debt yields for a while longer. We will see.

Meanwhile, the powerful corporate Autonomies which Fullermoney favours for our portfolios have been preparing for this day by paying down old and expensive debt, building cash reserves, including borrowing more cheaply while they could, whether then needed the money or not. They are in a strong position to weather future economic storms and profit handsomely during the good times. We know they can do this because we have seen how they have dealt with adversity since 2008. More of these companies are likely to become Dividend Aristocrats.

(See Eoin's bond market review below.)