Strong OTE helps to limit losses to 0.26 percent
Late-session buying helped trim losses on the Athens bourse yesterday on the back of strong gains in index heavyweight OTE Telecom as the bourse continued to track foreign peers. Weak international markets lead to early profit-taking, said Petros Tegopoulos, analyst at Axon Securities. The second half of the session was spent trimming losses. This pattern was similar to other performances on other European markets, he said. The Athens bourse benchmark general index eased 0.26 percent to 2,344.37 points after dipping to an intrasession low of 2,306.06 points. The bourse’s performance was better than we expected, said another broker. OTE gained 2.21 percent to 17.6 euros and the telecom subindex gained 1.51 percent. Banks lost 0.68 percent. Blue chips on the FTSE/ASE-20 index ended off 0.28 percent to 1,310.84 points, while mid-caps fell 1.01 percent. Small-caps fell 1.06 percent. Two other circumstances not usually considered as national assets could eventually work in favor of greater volunteerism. One is a growing unemployment rate, now over 10 percent, which would free up more people for the task. The other is a social security system that allows earlier retirement than in most other European countries, meaning that there are plenty of sprightly retirees who might like to roll up their sleeves for a healthy national cause.
