The Athens Stock Exchange general index recovered some of the earlier losses in the last two sessions of last week, closing at 2,948.08 points, or 1.04 percent down, on Thursday, compared to the week before.

Turnover in this four-session week (Friday was a national holiday) totaled 864.77 million euros, an average of 216.19 million per session, compared to 251.80 million euros the week before.

All Financial Times indices declined: the blue chip FTSE/ASE 20 index dropped 1.06 percent, closing at 1646.19 points. The FTSE/ASE Mid-40 and FTSE/ASE Small-Cap 80 shed 0.87 percent and 1.75 percent respectively.

Only three sectoral indices managed to escape losses; holdings scraped out a 0.01 percent gain, while telecoms and food & beverages gained 0.12 percent and 0.31 percent respectively. The biggest losers were investment (down 4.71 percent) and insurance (4.48 percent). Banks dropped 1.73 percent.

Analysts note that the rebound at the end of the week was not accompanied by an appreciable rise in turnover. Investor sentiment remains volatile, following the recent strong selling pressure and the unstable climate in foreign markets. They expect the general trend to become clearer in the next few trading sessions (the bourse is closed for the western Easter today). Foreign funds now account for most of turnover and so any prediction on the short-term performance of the market is related to their decisions. If some of them have planned to invest in bonds, this will take some more liquidity out of the stock market.