Bank stock losses drag local bourse lower
Investors opted to cash in on their gains from last week?s last couple of sessions, particularly bank stocks, sending the Greek bourse’s main index lower on Monday. The country’s fresh downgrade by Moody’s also played a role in the decline.
The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index ended at 1,269.09 points, shedding 1.33 percent from last Friday?s closing figure of 1,286.15 points.
The blue chip FTSE/ATHEX 20 index dropped 1.86 percent to end at 564.27 points, although the small-cap FTSE/ATHEX 80 index expanded by 1.79 percent.
Banks suffered significant losses, with Alpha falling 6.11 percent, National declining by 4.48 percent and Bank of Cyprus losing 4.15 percent. The best-performing blue chips were OTE telecom (up 1.71 percent), Hellenic Postbank (1.45 percent) and OPAP (1.10 percent).
In total, 88 stocks moved up, 64 went down and 47 remained unchanged. Mermeren Kombinat posted the biggest gains, amounting to 19.83 percent, while Axon Holdings was the worst off with losses of 10 percent.
Turnover came to 106 million euros, down from 161.2 million last Friday.
