Local stocks inch higher in thin trade
Despite Viohalco’s 22.12 percent decline just two days before the blue chip’s exit from the Greek stock market, the benchmark index still managed to post a marginal rise at the end of Wednesday’s session, helped mainly by nonbanking blue chips OTE, PPC and Titan on a day of relatively low activity.
The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index closed at 1,132.02 points, adding 0.19 percent to Tuesday’s 1,129.86 points. The large-cap FTSE/ATHEX 25 expanded by 0.45 percent to end at 376.03 points, while the small-cap index declined by 0.34 percent as losing stocks outnumbered the gainers. In total 55 stocks went up, 62 suffered losses and 34 remained unchanged.
Besides Viohalco, which dropped for the ninth time in the last 10 sessions, there were also significant losses for Hellenic Petroleum (down 4.02 percent) and Piraeus Bank (2.99 percent).
Titan Cement climbed 5.26 percent, Public Power Corporation added 1.88 percent, OTE telecom rose 1.64 percent and Corinth Pipeworks grew 3.72 percent.
GEK Terna, which on Monday will replace Viohalco in the blue chip index after its delisting, jumped 4.24 percent.
Turnover amounted to 76.5 million euros, down from Tuesday’s 87.8 million.
