Confidence in buyback success sees stocks rise
Despite the fact that local bank stocks continued to slide for a third consecutive day, and the drops registered by the majority of foreign stock markets, the Greek bourse enjoyed a healthy rise at the end of the week, with over 100 stocks posting gains in anticipation of a positive conclusion to the government’s bond buyback program.
The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index ended at 840.73 points, up 1.09 percent from Thursday’s 831.70 points. The large-cap FTSE/ATHEX-25 index added 0.34 percent to end up at 292.89 points.
On a weekly basis the benchmark index added 3.90 percent, while the banks index grew by 4.45 percent.
The banks’ decision to participate in the buyback scheme resulted in losses such as Alpha’s 6.47 percent, Piraeus’s 5.82 percent and Eurobank’s 4.93 percent. On the other hand, Duty Free Shops led the blue chips, expanding by 10.38 percent, followed by Hellenic Petroleum (up 4.84 percent), Intralot (3.95 percent) and Public Power Corporation (3.78 percent).
Bank of Cyprus suffered losses of 2.79 percent on the revision of the Cypriot recession by the island’s central bank from 1.1 percent to 2.4 percent for this year.
In total 103 stocks posted gains, 40 took losses and 25 were unchanged.
Turnover amounted to 46.9 million euros, down from Thursday’s 100.2 million.
