Stocks soar, led by huge rise for bank chips
The positive fiscal and corporate news (domestically and internationally) over the course of the five days that the Greek bourse had remained closed due to the Easter and May Day holidays created an impressive rally in Wednesday’s session that saw banks post their third highest daily growth ever and the benchmark index jump almost 60 points, way above the 1,000-point mark.
The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index closed at 1,043.28 points, soaring 6.06 percent from last Thursday’s 983.64 points. The large-cap FTSE/ATHEX-25 expanded by 7.37 percent to end at 351.22 points.
The banks index jumped 25.81 percent, as National added 27.34 percent, Piraeus grew by 25.21 percent, Alpha expanded by 24.35 percent and Eurobank rose 21.33 percent.
Among non-banking blue chips, Corinth Pipeworks outperformed as it increased by 9.68 percent, followed by OTE telecom (up 9.02 percent).
Duty Free Shops was the only large-cap to head south (down 0.63 percent).
In total 139 stocks posted gains, 30 registered losses and 18 remained unchanged.
Turnover came to 168.3 million euros, more than twice last Thursday’s 74.6 million.
