Small-caps on the rise
The Athens Stock Exchange general index closed last Thursday at 1,663.77 points, up 30.71 points, or 1.88 percent, from the previous week’s close. There were only three sessions last week, due to the stock market’s observance of both the Roman Catholic and Protestant, as well as Orthodox, Easter holidays. This past week, small-caps led the way. The FTSE/ASE-80 small-cap index rose 3.88 percent, to 419.24 points. The FTSE/ASE-40 of mid-caps rose 2.49 percent, to 174.86 points, while the blue-chip FTSE/ASE-20 rose 2.34 percent, to 813.81 points. The FTSE/ASE-140 composite index rose 2.53 percent to 1,880.19 points. All but one of the sectoral indices ended with gains. The exception, real estate, fell 0.86 percent. Insurance stocks topped all gainers, rising 10.19 percent. They were followed by textiles (7.63 percent), banks (5.63 percent), and wholesale commerce (4.87 percent). Among individual stocks, gainers were led by Kego (41.55 percent), Xifias Fisheries (36 percent) and Yiannis Yianousis (32.04 percent). The main losers were Domus Investments (22.62 percent), Stabilton’s preferred stock (17.65 percent) and Informatics (13.73 percent). The most heavily traded stock, once again, was OTE, with an average daily volume of 9.59 million euros, followed by Alpha Bank (4.58 million). (Ed. note: Due to a technological problem, the stock lists below for the sectoral indices and main gainers and losers only give figures from the close of Wednesday’s session.)
