Shaky start, better finish
The Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) general index closed last Friday at 2,451.50 points, a loss of 13.89 points, or 0.56 percent, on the previous week. Losses during the first two sessions, on Tuesday and Wednesday – the market was closed last Monday – pushed the index below 2,400 index, but there was a recovery in the last two sessions, fueled by satisfactory annual results and the successful placement of CosmOTE shares sold by Norwegian company Telenor. The latter move, which involved transactions worth over 360 million euros, helped boost weekly turnover to 1.17 billion euros – an average of 292.46 million euros per session – from 686.25 million the previous week. All FTSE indices declined, most of all the blue chip FTSE/ASE-20, which lost 1.57 percent to close at 1,269.45 points. The FTSE/ASE Small Cap 80 dropped 0.87 percent, and the FTSE/ASE Mid-40 lost 0.41 percent. The composite FTSE/ASE-140 lost 1.35 percent to close at 2,851.34 points. Twelve of the 18 sectoral indices ended lower. The biggest losers were retail commerce (4.24 percent) and banks (2.64 percent), while the biggest gainers were non-metallic minerals (2.23 percent) and telecoms (1.50 percent). Of the 364 stocks traded, 226 declined, 111 gained and 27 remained unchanged. The biggest gains were registered by Flexopack (17.94 percent) and European Technical (16 percent). The top losers were Sarantis (24.53 percent) and Kloukinas-Lappas (15.69 percent). The most marketable securities were CosmOTE, with an average daily turnover of 116.05 million euros, Alpha Bank (22.75 million) and OTE (22.49 million).
